Burning the Midnight Oil
by Rose Eclipse
Summary: People knew him as "the Bear Jew", a United States sergeant, and an infamous Bastard. Donny Donowitz always knew life had a reason worth living for and a duty worth fighting for. An origin story.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: "Inglorious Bastards" directed by Quentin Tarantino and Eli Roth owns the role of Donny Donowitz.

_Boston, late 1930's_

The faint violin music and sounds of Eddie Cantor from the radio and the soft clicking of knitting needles came to a grinding halt when the door slammed and Donny Donowitz, strapping tall and 200 pounds of compact muscle, burst into the sitting room. Donowitz Sr. merely reached for the knob to turn off the radio while his wife continued knitting the blue scarf for one of her younger sons. For a hefty guy who could lick any other boy with his fists or a baseball bat, he certainly got feisty when certain nerves were poked and prodded.

"…think I didn't know about it and only NOW does Mrs. Goldstein tell me right after batting practice!" Donny threw up his hands in disgust. "For Christ's sake, at least let me know before everyone starts spreading rumors all over town."

"She's a very nice girl," Mrs. Donowitz said without even looking up from counting a row of azure loops threaded perfectly onto the needle.

"That ain't the problem, Ma," Donny continued to fume. "The problem is that everyone thinks we're gettin' married and I'm not gonna have myself strapped to any lady's apron strings."

"Calm down," Mr. Donowitz ordered his son. While nowhere half as physically threatening as Donny, there was a crisp edge in his father's voice that made the young man shut up and listen attentively.

"It's not as insane as it sounds, Donny," Mr. Donowitz went on. "Mrs. Goldstein was in Shapiro's Diner on Monday and talking about all the girls she tried setting you up with but they slipped through her fingers despite your 'boyish charm' and a steady job at the packing warehouse. Then Ruth Shapiro—still in her apron and rubber gloves-walked straight up to Mrs. Goldstein and said she'd consider it a match."

"Marry me!" Donny's hands chopped through the air madly. "Just like that, huh? This isn't the Polish _shtetl_, Pa. This is America!"

"Which is why I think you two should discuss things over," Mrs. Donowitz suggested. "Ruth said she's had the idea on her mind for a while now. It's not as if she's asking you to move out to Baltimore or Miami Beach...or to give up the Red Soxs for the Yankees."

"Ma!"

Only now did Mrs. Donowitz set her needles aside in the earthenware bowl and get out of her rocking chair. The sight of the small gray-haired woman talking up to her burly son would make visitors chuckle although it didn't take much from his mother to get Donny to listen.

"Now listen to me, Donny. You're a young man now. It's time to think about settling down a bit, maybe getting a home of your own in the neighborhood. You'll still see your old friends and the barbershop isn't going anywhere. Just think about what Ruth Shapiro is suggesting. _Nu_, is that so much to ask from a woman who raised you from birth?"

Instinctively, his eyebrows furrowed in disapproval. But upon facing the small roundish face and twinkling gray eyes of his mother, once again Donny found himself unable to back down from parental requests.

"Well," he muttered while digging a foot into the carpet. "I guess it wouldn't kill me to go talk to her. But I'm not gonna let Ruth Shapiro or anyone else run my life around the track!" He turned on heel and snatched his leather jacket off the chair where he had tossed it no more than five minutes ago.

"Take a hat," his mother called from the living room. But it was too late: the door slammed shut and their son's heavy footsteps went padding down the stairs before finally quieting down.

"Tsk, tsk," she shook her head. "That young man will catch cold one of these days."

"Not Donny," her husband said as he put his pipe back in his mouth. "Our boy is made of strong stuff."

A-A-A

Shapiro's Diner was closed but Donny let himself in through the back door. Years ago when he and his friends were still teenagers, they'd hang around the alleyway and wait for Mr. Shapiro to hand out the leftover potato knishes or stuffed cabbage that hadn't been sold for the day. They'd snatch up the tinfoil-wrapped treasures, stuff them into their pockets, and dash off to the local park for another round of baseball or to spy on old Mr. Bloom yelling at his neighbors.

Things had changed since those good old days. Quite a few of Donny's childhood pals had headed to New York City, Scranton, or even out to Chicago for college and jobs. Others stayed closer to Boston to help their families who had suffered the strain of the Great Depression and were scraping by to make ends meet.

And him?

Donny had been a skinny wiry kid up until the age of 11 and then puberty kicked in. His legs shot out under him, his appetite increased tenfold, and he was gaining enough energy to hit countless home runs on the baseball field. He and his pals had gotten into local street fights with the Irish and Italian kids but eventually the black eyes and bloodied noses only served as badges of courage that spurned on their adolescent antics. Fighting was honor and glory for their people and everyone wanted a piece of the action. Eventually, rivalry drifted into competition and soon they were all playing together in the alleyways and honing their batting skills at Walden's Park. Alfredo Contelli, better known as "Al" by his friends, taught Donny to shadowbox and assured him that someday they'd be the best middleweights in the Northeast.

He knew that college wasn't for him. Not that he wasn't bright, Rabbi Markus had said when Donny was 16 years old. But sitting in the back of a classroom throughout high school had been a close-to-torture experience for Donny, who couldn't stop his legs from jiggling or his fingers from drumming on the desk during mathematics or Hebrew Scripture classes. At least Rabbi Markus didn't dismiss Donny's impatience as impudence or laziness like other teachers. He had Donny put to work shoveling snow in the winter, helping people build their _succahs_ in the fall, and delivering Passover matzas all over town in the spring.

"Every talent that God gives us has a purpose in this world," Rabbi Markus used to say. "Our goal is to tap into our talents and make this a better world." _Tikkun HaOlam_, fixing the world.

_If Rabbi Markus could see me now_, Donny thought to himself with a shake of the head. He pushed the backdoor open and stepped into the warm kitchen.

Ruth was making rugalech and using a heavy rolling pin to flatten the dough into paper-thin sheets in a record time, her arms madly swiping back and forth across the tabletop as if her life depended on making the perfect pastries. She stopped what she was doing long enough to look up at Donny. Deep-set hazel eyes flickered attentively to meet his dark penetrating gaze. He shifted his weight from one foot to another while assessing the young woman in the white apron with a braid of dark brown hair running down her back.

Ruth Shapiro was one of those brunettes who-unlike the willowy figures of pinup magazines and Hollywood stars-seemed to be made of tough Indian rubber with a sprinkling of sugar and spice. Ever since her mother had passed away the responsibilities of the woman of the house had fallen on Ruth's shoulders. She upheld her duties by helping her father and brothers run the diner while maintaining a respectable reputation for turning out the best potato latkes and brisket in town. Once a Manhattan lawyer tried to buy off one of Ruth's dessert recipes but she shook her head and laughed, saying it wasn't for sale and she wasn't going to get up into any crazy money schemes for turning cheesecake into millions. (The Shapiros all shared a disdain of anything or anyone that smacked of Wall Street trouble)

Ruth wasn't exactly bad-looking although sometimes Donny thought God had gotten a little carried away with her features: a definitive crook in the center of her angled nose, a high brow beneath a widow's peak, and a lower lip that protruded slightly more than the upper one. He never gave her a second thought in high school and preferred the attention of other gawking giggling girls. But at least she didn't have any warty pimples like Judy Katz or a pointy chin that got in the way of kissing.

She seemed to have all her teeth and wits intact. Folks said if Ruth's hands weren't preoccupied with a vat of hot cooking oil then her nose was buried inside a book. As if to prove the theory true, Donny's eye fell on a well-worn copy of _The Scarlet Pimpernel_ that lay on a stool near the stove.

Instinctively he helped himself to a chocolate-chip cookie from a batch that had just come out of the oven. Donny burned his fingers and with a yelp, dropped the cookie back on the tray. Steam continued to rise from the cookies like cautious smoke.

"Wait a few minutes," Ruth said quietly. "They'll cool off on their own."

"Damn things," he muttered, blowing on his reddened fingers. "Someone oughta to put a warning label on those." He caught Ruth covering her mouth to suppress a smile but her eyes didn't deceive him. She dipped a knife into a pot of golden preserves and slathered apricots across the dough.

"Don't think I'm saying 'yes' already," Donny snapped at her. "And even if I _did_ agree to this goddamn stupid idea, I sure as hell don't want to see any fancy-pansy perfume bottles cluttering up my sink."

"I wouldn't dream of it," Ruth assured him.

"Or lacy curtains in the window," he ranted on.

"Mmmmm," came the response.

"And I'm NOT taking dancing lessons like the Rubensteins!" Donny nearly shouted in her face. Ruth turned around to pretend to look for something but he could hear a gentle laugh even when her back was to him. "What's so funny?"

"Jimmy Burke proposed to me two weeks ago," she chuckled, coming back to Donny and sweeping a canister of powdered sugar across the newly made apricot rugelach.

"WHAT?" Donny was up in arms with anger. "That Irish clock-maker down at 18th Street? The one with enough freckles to cover Texas? Why'd the hell he want to marry _you_?"

"Because he liked me," Ruth replied as-a-matter of fact. "Or maybe he liked my Danishes even more."

She was mildly enjoying this escapade while inwardly praying it would go somewhere. Jimmy T. Burke was a sweet charming customer and thoughtful enough to bring her flowers on Friday afternoons just before they closed up the diner. Jimmy told Ruth that she was one of the nicest girls he had ever known and he'd be glad to take her to the chapel any day. But Ruth's mind was made up. She was going to marry a Jewish man even if getting Donny Donowitz under her thumb was going to be tougher than handling 10 Jimmy Burkes.

"Well, you can't marry Jimmy. Even if he is a decent curveball pitcher," Donny snorted. He leaned against the wall and folded his arms across his chest. For a brief moment there was silence in the kitchen. Ruth's knife cut through the rugelach into neat little squares before she moved them onto a fresh tray, humming Frank Sinatra slightly off-key.

Then Donny blurted out, "If you wanted to marry me then why didn't you say so before?"

"Because you never asked," Ruth said. "And because I wasn't interested in picking up my skirts for just anyone. But now that you've got a job I think things'll turn out fine."

"So what happens now? You wanna go shotgun on this overnight?" Donny shot at her.

"No. First you tell me if you're going to accept my offer. And then you tell me if you'll consent to an apartment on Sallsburg Street."

"Sallsburg?" His eyebrows arched up. "Why the hell—"

Ruth cocked her head to one side. "Because I don't know about you Donny but I sure don't want to move in with relatives or have a bedroom facing Mrs. Goldstein's front porch. And because Sallsburg has a fair price."

Ugh, did she _have_ to be right about these things?

"And you've got to promise not to go drinking every night, not to cheat on me, or hit me."

His eyes nearly bulged out of his sockets. "Promise?"

"And in return I'll make sure you don't starve and get your pants pressed every week. That's a fair deal. Take it or leave it," Ruth replied. Then she went back to the pastry dough as if they had been discussing the weather.

"Well fuck-a-duck, isn't THAT fantastic!" Donny nearly exploded in her face. "Yeah sure, that's a brilliant New Deal from Ruth the super genius Shapiro!" he slapped a hand to his thigh. "You just mix up two people like you're mixing dough and lah-de-dah, a miracle pops out! Anything else, princess?"

"No, I think that's about it." Ruth stopped cutting up the rugelach long enough to wipe her hands on her apron and begin moving the cooled cookies to a tray. Donny scrutinized her actions while musing over this nonsensical offer that had just landed into his lap.

Ruth dared to speak up again. "You know Donny, I'm still amazed that prune Danish is one of our most popular desserts on the menu."

"What does _that_ have to do with the price of tea in China?"

"I'm just saying that that you'll never know how good or bad something is until you try it out."

Ruth walked over to the big strapping man and offered him the cookie tray. "The only question left is...are you man enough to accept my offer?"

He couldn't resist the challenge. Donny snatched a cookie off the tray and shoved the entire thing into his mouth. It nearly melted under his tongue.

"Well?" Ruth asked. His response was to grab another four cookies off the plate and run out the door but not without mumbling, "I'll think about it" over his shoulder.

A-A-A

Why he finally consented was beyond him but frankly, Donny couldn't think of a decent reason why not to marry Ruth Shapiro.

Maybe he was antsy staying in his old bedroom after two decades or just fed up of the rest of the Jewish community dropping hints and suggestions to him about what he was going to do with his life if not shadowbox, give haircuts, or teach little league. Either way he finally said "Oh, to hell with it" and decided to go ahead with the wedding. If things didn't work out then he'd take his minuscule savings, hitch a train ride down to Baltimore, and see if the Orioles needed him.

A local wedding was a tremendous delight to the Jewish community and what with reports flitting in from their relatives in Europe about unpleasant riots and a new wave of antisemitism, a family _simcha _was just the cheerful occasion to breeze away any jilted concerns. They only wished things overseas would calm down and go away, leaving them to live their lives as they wished.

Donny and Ruth were married on a cool autumn afternoon at the Bethel Synagogue on Newberry Street. Donny looked dressed to kill in a new pinstripe suit and gray fedora that the local tailor had made especially for his wedding day. He had to admit that he looked damn good that morning when he knotted his tie and ran a damp comb to smooth down his jet-black hair. With his parents arms linked through his, he walked down the aisle towards the _chuppah _where a prayer shawl was spread over Ruth like a white striped canopy.

Ruth's friends, over a giggling bridal shower, had assisted her in stitching together an adequate wedding gown. Now dressed in simple white muslin with her brown hair curled around her shoulders and a white rose in her hair, she looked silent and still as an angel as Donny walked around her seven times before taking her side underneath the _chuppah_. Ruth's eyes peeped out modestly from underneath the gauzy veil in time to see him wink at her. Her cheeks turned scarlet but she smiled all the same.

Blessings were said, the wine was sipped, and Donny stomped on the glass cup (thankfully wrapped in a handkerchief) as the ancient custom advised. Shouts of "_Mazel tov_!" and "_L'Chaim_!" flitted through the air and many a friend clapped Donny on the back, laughing at him for tying the knot and laughing with him for getting a nice girl.

Nachum Cardoba, the old Sephardic jeweler, was a long-time of the Donowitz family and insisted that Donny accept one of his pendants for his fiancée. The oblong gold talisman had a kabbalistic prayer engraved on the side, which Nachum insisted would protect the wearer from harm. Ruth was delighted with the necklace and tried not to make such a fuss over Donny helping her fasten the golden chain around her neck but everyone could see she was glowing with happiness.

A-A-A

Things were low-key for a while and they quickly settled into a domestic life.

Donny had gotten a job at the Whitemore Shipping Company months before marriage had been a hot topic. So he continued to work there six days a week while Ruth still went to the diner and took the morning shift. They were both exhausted by the end of the day but Donny managed to take in a hearty supper while entertaining Ruth with his running commentary on the day's work or the radio game. The sex wasn't too bad either—Ruth claimed you could learn a lot from those dime novels—and it was a welcomed relief to have someone in the bed during the long bleak winter days.

It all started three months later when Ruth insisted that she wanted Donny to start going to synagogue services every Saturday morning. He protested that he worked his fingers to the bone six other days of the week and was entitled to sleep on Saturday for securing their tiny apartment. Besides, he went on the High Holidays and Passover so that was good enough for a Donowitz.

"It's Sabbath, all the more so a reason to get your _tuchus_ out of bed and go thank God for giving you the day off," Ruth chastised him. He just laughed at her and flicked a square of paper into her face. Donny didn't think she'd take it seriously but he'd quickly discover what he and his wife had in common: chutzpah.

Donny learned the hard way when Ruth suddenly kicked him out of bed on a cold February morning. Her feet slammed into his back, causing him to topple out from under their feather-bed comforter. Donny on the floorboards with a loud _WHUMP_.

"What the HELL!" he shouted, placing both palms on the ground and forcing himself half-up. "Are you crazy, woman?"

Ruth just put a foot on either side of her husband and sat down hard on his stomach. Her hazel orbs, gleaming like cats' eyes in the morning light, starred right down back at him.

"It's up to you whether or not you go to synagogue this morning," she replied nonchalantly. "Just as it's up to me whether or not I feed you when you get back."

"You're a two-timed blackmailer," Donny fumed.

"And I've got the _cholent _pot," she added, waving an index finger in the air. "So what's it going to be, Mr. Donowitz?" With the fragrant scent of potatoes and meat simmering down the hallway in the kitchen, he was being sorely baited. Donny was not a man to be defeated easily or without wounding his pride.

"You're a cruel woman, Mrs. Donowitz," he muttered under his breath. But he managed to get her off his stomach and stomped into the bathroom, slamming the door harshly behind him.

Donny splashed some water on his face to wake up and began washing his neck. Maybe if he went to synagogue he'd get more sleep there anyway without Ruth poking her face into his schedule. "Crazy little dingbat," he growled wearily. Who was Ruth to think she could get him under her thumb? He was the goddamn Donowitz, the best bat-swinger in the East! Once he'd make it to the World Series and earned a million-dollar contract then she'd be sorry.

Donny dried his hands on a towel and came out of the bathroom. Ruth was already getting out his second best suit, the gray one. "I'll be there in half an hour," she told him while helping Donny to straighten his tie. "We can walk back together after services." And with a touch of her lips to his cheek, that was that. Donny set off for the synagogue, his footsteps making soft crunching sounds in the new dusting of snow.

If anyone was surprised to see him at nine o'clock on a Saturday then they didn't say a word—or they were good fibbers. A few of the old-timers in gray beards and wrinkles greeted Donny with "_Gut Shabbos_". He mumbled a "_Gut Shabbos_" back before slumping down one of the wooden benches. Rabbi Markus gave him a nod of approval before wrapping his shoulders in a prayer shawl and turning east to conduct the services. Donny realized that he couldn't go back to sleep while sitting straight up in his chair so he turned his attention to the prayers and the Torah reading.

Things looked a bit better when the five Birnbaum children, all red-headed and feisty, bounced into the synagogue. They were a loveable bunch of kids; each one had a piece of sunshine tucked away in his or her personality. Even the oldest and grumpiest member of the synagogue could not be irritated when little Joseph Birnbaum, who was five years old and adored Donny to pieces, ran up and chirped "_Gut Shabbos_!" happily to everyone in his path.

Donny was also not immune to Joseph's cheeriness and upon seeing the little redhead, instinctively picked him up and placed him on his knee. Joseph squealed with delight and bounced up and down a few times while waving to his brothers and sisters at the front of the synagouge.

Eventually Donny's attention drifted upward to the women's balcony where the girls and their mothers were seated. He saw Ruth sitting near a window wearing her purple wool dress and a brown hat, her concentration focused on the words in her prayer book. Something stirred within him, the beast growling grudgingly over his wounded pride. He was still angry with her for her antics and wouldn't let her forget it. When services were over everyone met outside, Donny saw Ruth approaching him and gave her freezing look that stopped Ruth in her tracks. The curse on his lips halted short when he chose to turn his back on her and walk off, leaving his wife standing alone and hurt.

A-A-A

It was hours after Sabbath had ended and very late, even on a Saturday night, when Donny put the key in the lock and opened the door to their apartment. He hadn't gone to a bar or even the movies, just spent the hours pacing up and down the streets until the sun had set and light dwindled into darkness.

Inwardly, he knew it wasn't just Ruth who had set him off for the day. It also had to do with those grotesque caricatures in the papers portraying Jews as fat money lenders or ugly long-nosed crooks, as well as the hostile radio reports filtering in from Europe. Donny hated that more than anything: being labeled with ugly offensive accusations just because someone was stupid enough to take first impressions to heart. No wonder Rabbi Markus had asked them to say an extra prayer for their brothers and sisters overseas. You say one awful thing and it spreads like wildfire.

Donny was fatigued, hungry, and thirsty when he stepped into the dining room. It was extremely quiet with only the hissing sound of the radiator to welcome him. Unwinding the scarf from around his neck and kicking off his boots, he made his way from one room to another in search of Ruth. There was a plate of warm _cholent _waiting for him on the stovetop and when he opened up the icebox, he found a bottle of his favorite beer chilled to perfection.

This gesture was noted and while it couldn't diminish the irritation in Donny's temper it was making a peculiar impression that he couldn't put his finger on. It didn't change the facts of life but it did make him feel somewhat better knowing he had what to come home to.

He popped open the beer and gulped half of it down thirstily before making his way to the bedroom. The lamp was dimmed and Ruth's sleepy head lay draped across the pillows, her index finger still holding the page of a new detective novel in her lap. He bent over to kiss her on the cheek. Her hair was still damp from a recent shower and her skin smelled like lilac soap.

If love wasn't made overnight with magic potions and love ballads strummed by guitar then Donny sure as hell didn't know where it came from. But the emotion compelled him to turn off the bedside lamp and begin removing his clothes. When he was completely undressed, he climbed into bed next to Ruth and wrapped his arms around her waist. She was half-awake when she felt a warm mouth and the ticklish sensation of a stubbly chin nuzzling into the soft skin of her neck. Then a firm hand slid through her hair and propped her head up to his face. With a gasp of surprise, Ruth clung to him tightly.

"_Gut voch_," he murmured into her ear.

"_Gut voch_," Ruth responded sleepily.

The next Saturday, Ruth rose at 8 o'clock to get dressed for services, leaving Donny asleep in the bed. She was more than slightly surprised to find him pulling on his socks when she came out of the bathroom. He looked up at her with a teasing smile.

"Don't let me do this all on my own," he smirked as he stretched a sock and fired it at her face like a slingshot.

Ten minutes later they strolled out the door with arms linked together.

A-A-A

Author's notes:

_Succah_ – A booth built outdoors for the holiday of Succot which takes place in the fall

_Tikkun HaOlam_ – A Hebrew phrase in the Mishnah that literally means "to fix the world" through social justice and kind deeds

_Simcha_ – A happy occasion

_Chuppah_ – A canopy that the bride and groom stand under during the wedding ceremony

_Cholent_ – A stew of beans, potatoes, and meat that is prepared on Friday afternoon and kept cooking overnight over a low steady flame then served for Sabbath day meal.

_Gut voch_ – Translated as "a good week" from Yiddish and how people greet each other after Sabbath ends. Some say "Shavua Tov" which is the same thing only translated from Hebrew.

Thank you for reading.


	2. Chapter 2

For a man who hadn't thought much about the marriage business, Donny realized he had gotten off pretty lucky. He had a roof over his head, a steady job, and a wife who didn't scream her head off at him every second of the day.

Ruth still liked getting the upper hand once in a while. If she was in a teasing mood Ruth would deliberately read aloud the Yankees winning until Donny looked ready to burst a vein. Then she'd laugh until he swatted her over the head with the newspaper.

But if he came home exhausted and complaining loudly about the ache in his back from lifting crates all day then Ruth would order him to lie down on the carpet. She'd bend over his body and knead the sore muscles in his neck and arms, hardened by years of exercise, until the tight knots surrendered and unwound to her flexible fingers. Donny would muffle "thanks" from lying face-down on the floor, earning him a "you're welcome" followed by, "Do you lift rocks all day? Because what I really need is a jackhammer".

Donny and Ruth learned they had a few things in common. For example, both of them were second generation Americans. Donny's mother had immigrated from Russia while Ruth's folks were from Czechoslovakia. They both preferred Batman over Superman comics. "No sane man would go outside in that god-awful costume of red underwear and blue tights to fight criminals," Donny would say. "Let alone change inside a dinky phone booth." At least Bruce Wayne had sufficient common sense to build a cave before transforming into the Dark Knight. And he was a millionaire playboy, not some puny newspaper reporter.

Their tempers were a different story altogether. Donny's face would flare red when he was angry and he'd yell at the top of his lungs, spraying spit into people's faces and slamming doors when he left the room. But Ruth got quiet and motionless when she became upset. The color would drain out of her face and her lips became pink wax. She'd sit on the sofa and her eyes would gloss over like a china doll, entranced in her own little world. Donny never admitted how much it bothered him when she became immobilized like that and he was compelled to shake her by the shoulders when it happened.

Fortunately, those instances were rare. For the most part they were thankful for the small but cozy apartment, enough to eat, and even a dollar or two at the end of the month for the Hadassah United Fund that was raising money for Jewish refugees.

Donny tried to teach Ruth to play poker but then he'd cross his eyes or make a face which sent her into stitches until she dropped all her cards. Making her laugh was one of the highlights of his day so if they weren't too tired at the end of the day they'd go to the local Johnson movie theater and be entertained by Jimmy Stewart, Maureen O'Hara, the Marx Brothers, and Shirley Temple who lit up the screen and made everyone forget their troubles for a few hours. Donny's impersonation of Groucho Marx was spot on while his British and Italian accents were so bad that Ruth laughed until tears came to her eyes.

She loved to read. Ruth would get her hands on every book possible and if she missed the downtown bus to the library then she'd score the morning paper and do the crossword puzzle. Donny made an effort to find good-quality second-hand books and Ruth was elated when he came home with _Robinson Crusoe_, _Sherlock Holmes_, and _Ivanhoe _just for her. He also found a huge album of landscape photos taken at the Grand Canyon, They spent an evening pouring over the book together while he promised her a trip to Arizona once they had saved up enough money.

But despite the domestic routines and the brief visits to his father's barbershop to catch up on old times, he was still Donny Donowitz. Marriage was a thin veil of silence that couldn't control him forever. Whenever they saw the newsreels at the end of the films about what was going on overseas, Donny felt the coals of energy stir in his chest. The sight of that man on the screen who called himself the dictator of the "pure Aryan race", that screaming jerk in a ratty mustache, made Donny's hands ball up tightly into clenched fists.

Some mornings instead of hauling himself out of bed right away, Donny would lie still and listen to the sound of Ruth's soft breathing. Her chest would rise up and down evenly in time to the monotone sound of the clock ticking down the hallway and it struck him as being so picturesque, so quaint and innocent, that he couldn't help but think what their lives would be like if he and Ruth were on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean right now. It made his mind itch with concern.

It just wasn't fair to him; it wasn't right lying around and cherishing the good things while other people didn't have anything at all...not even hope.

A-A-A

Nobody asked where Mr. Paul Whitmore went on his lunch break, what he did on the weekends, and who he invited to his holiday parties.

Frankly, no one cared.

What the boss did was his business so who were Donny Donowitz and Alfredo Contelli to complain? They and the other fifty men who worked near the harbor got their paychecks from Whitmore and that was that. While Donny and Al transported heavy cargo crates from ships to warehouses, Whitmore sat behind a mahogany desk and had a private staff car drive him to and from work.

The city bus pulled up near the warehouse one day when Ruth said her husband had left his lunch pail home and she wanted to bring it to him. Mr. Whitmore took one look at the bright-eyed brunette in the navy-blue beret who had stepped off the bus and offered her to sit in his office until she was warmed up from the brisk cold.

Five minutes later, Donny and his co-worker Nathan Strauss heard a scream from the boss's office. The voice registered in Donny's head and he dropped the crate he was carrying, dashing up the stairs three at a time with Nathan at his heels. He nearly broke down the office door in time to find Ruth pinned down on Whitmore's desk while his big clumsy hands were fumbling with the buttons of her blouse. She was kicking and struggling to get him off of her while shrieking as loud as she could.

Ten thousand volts of electricity shot through Donny's body. He lunged for Whitmore, grabbing him by the shoulders and yanking him off Ruth before slamming the man to the ground. "_Son of a bitch_!" he roared, grabbing Whitmore by the lapels of his jacket and shaking him ruthlessly. "What the _FUCK_ were you doing with _MY WIFE!" _

Before Nathan could stop him, Donny brought down a fist across Whitmore's face. The cracking sound was satisfying and he hoped the man had broken his jaw. He began pounding both fists into Whitmore like a well-oiled machine.

It took five men to pull Donny off Whitmore who was struggling to his feet and wiping his flabby pink face with a handkerchief.

"You wanna piece of me? COME ON!" Donny shouted, straining at the hands that were holding him back. "I dare you! Fight like a man, you jackass!"

Donny was fired for "disruptive conduct" and "physical assault on a superior staff member". With his arm around Ruth's waist, he led her down the stairs out of Whitmore's office but not without hearing his ex-boss order him, "Take your Jewish bitch and get out of here". His gaze couldn't even meet that of his friends who starred by in silence and shock while they parted a path for Donny and Ruth.

They rode the bus home in silence. When they got to the apartment, Donny asked Ruth if Whitmore had hurt her. "No," she whispered in a faint voice. "But he tore my blouse". She quickly changed out of her clothes and instead of salvaging the ripped blouse for some other use, hastily discarded it into the garbage can. Ruth took a seat at the kitchen table and watched her husband pace the floor, his dark-brown eyes burning with rage and uttering curses under his breath while her fingers fiddled with her gold necklace.

What could Ruth do? What could either of them do? She was scared and he was furious….but the history books had written harsh consequences for those insignificant human beings who dared to stand up to the powerful people in this world. Sometimes you just had to keep your mouth shut and deal with the problems that came your way-but not for Donny Donowitz. He wasn't a man who could live by crawling on the ground. He'd die first before submitting himself to anything he knew was wrong.

There was the sound of liquid sloshing coming from the corner. Donny had opened a cabinet and gotten down the whiskey bottle-rarely used and nearly full. He set two glasses down on the table and poured them each half a glassful. Ruth took a few cautious sips which restored color to her face but Donny slugged his whiskey down all in one shot. The penetrating gaze was still dangerous but he seemed to be calming down at last when he set aside the empty class.

"It sucks," he said at last. "Life just sucks sometime."

Ruth walked over to Donny and took his big calloused hand into her smaller ones. His skin was very warm to the touch; he seemed to be radiating heat amidst his fury. He had an impulse to shake her grip off but chose to ignore it, allowing Ruth to hold onto his hand tightly as if it was a life preserver that could keep her from sinking into the sea.

A-A-A

Donny was in a better mood when they went to synagogue together that Saturday. When Ruth's eyes darted around cautiously at a tin can rattling in the gutter or a car passing by he just kept a protective arm around her shoulder.

"Don't worry," he assured her. "Nobody's gonna hurt Baby Ruth while I'm here."

She mustered up a faint smile of relief. Ruth liked hearing that term of affection from time to time.

Services were halfway over and the soft murmuring of congregants was quickly hushed when the rabbi called Donny up to bless the Torah. Ruth's eyes glowed with pride when she saw her husband rise from his seat and walk towards the middle of the synagogue to where the parchment scroll lay on a small velvet table. A fellow congregant draped the black and white prayer shawl around Donny who placed his hands on the wooden handles of the Torah scroll.

He was about to recite the Hebrew prayer when he heard the tinkling sound of glass breaking. There was a loud crash when small hard objects whistled through the air and slammed into the floor. Everyone ducked down instinctively, many of them covering their faces with their hands. It was over in less than a minute. When Donny got up he saw a fracture of clear blue sky starring out of the stained-glass window facing east. A dozen large stones lay on the synagogue floor after being hurled through the window, which was now jagged and the colored shapes distorted from the damage.

Donny threw off the prayer shawl and ran outside towards the alleyway, hoping to get a look at the culprits. Something heavy and hard slammed into his right temple. The world flashed brilliantly yellow and white-then went black-before his eyes. Someone let out a stream of four-letter words followed by a hard shove and then Donny fell like a sack of wet cement to the ground.

The throbbing ache in his brain continued while he heard a familiar voice shouting, "Yeah, you'd better run!" Donny struggled to clear his vision as Lawrence, the synagogue caretaker, was helping him to his feet. "Ya all right, Mr. Donowitz?" Lawrence asked while he dusted Donny off.

"Fine," Donny grunted. He squinted to see the figures off in the distance who were getting further and further away.

Lawrence shook a fist in their direction. "Damn cowards," he fumed, shaking his head in disgust. Then he turned back to Donny with a woeful expression. "Oh, I'm awful sorry 'bought that Mr. Donowitz. Dose hoodlums in the neighborhood again I reckon but I never thought they'd be messin' on this side 'o town."

"Hoodlums?" Donny glowered. He wasn't a rocket scientist but the mischief kids in town would sooner raid a drugstore or cinema than a synagogue. For one thing, they were usually after liquor or money. And another thing, they'd go break in at night—not midday-for fear of getting caught. Whoever threw the stones did it deliberately.

Donny's fingers ran over the bruise that throbbed above his cheek and then he saw red. He saw the congregants murmuring nervously among themselves outside the synagogue. He saw Rabbi Markus order everyone to leave the synagogue immediately and get home safely. And he saw little Joseph Birnbaum cry when he pricked his finger on a shard of glass, causing a bead of red blood to fall to the floor before shoving his finger in his mouth.

Ruth tried to keep up with her husband on the way home but his legs took long heavy strides in front of her. His hands were shoved into his pockets and he kept muttering to himself, "I'm gonna kill them. I'm gonna fix those goons for good."

Spurned on with fear and determination, Ruth ran ahead of Donny to face him and clasp her palms to his face. "Donny, stop!" she insisted, her voice carrying more force than she anticipated. He glared at her but finally halted in his tracks.

"It's not just about you and me anymore. If you go charging after whoever did this without a plan then they will hurt you and everyone else in this neighborhood." Ruth went on, trying to keep her voice as controlled as possible. "You've got to think before you do anything crazy."

"Think, yeah," he mumbled. "Crazy." His head still throbbing from the blow, he consented to letting Ruth walk him home until the bruise went down. While Donny lay on the sofa nursing an ice-pack to his head, Ruth fixed him a drink of warm milk, honey, and a double-shot of whiskey. He slept hard for the rest of the afternoon while she read magazines and tried to distract her mind from the cloud of dread that hung over their heads.

Sabbath was nearly over and three stars winked in the sky when Donny woke up feeling much more controlled than before. There was still a small purple bruise near his right eye but the dizziness was gone and he was refreshed from the long nap. He also had a very good idea of what he had to do. Donny went into the bedroom, took off his gray suit, and put on a pair of blue jeans and a dark-colored shirt. Then he fumbled in the closet for his Louisville Slugger. He gripped the bat with his fighting hand and took a swipe though the air, testing its strength.

"What on earth are you going to do?" Ruth asked.

There was a faint tapping sound at the door and she nearly jumped. Bat in hand, Donny advanced towards the door. "Who is it?" he questioned cautiously.

"Steve Whitmore". The young eager voice was slightly muffled through the wood but Donny recognized the name of his ex-boss' son. He had only seen Steve a few times at the warehouse but he seemed like a harmless person. Nevertheless, Donny opened the door cautiously.

Standing there was a lanky young man about fifteen years old with a mop of unruly brown curls. He kept twisting his cap in his hands and talked in a frank anxious voice.

"I'm awful sorry Mr. Donowitz. I'm so sorry," he blurted out when Ruth invited him into their home. "I heard my dad sayin' he wanted to 'give all Jews a lesson in manners' so today I tried callin' the cops and warning that something bad might happen but they said it was hot air and—"

"Okay, kid. Chill down for a minute," Donny cut him short. He made Steve sit down at the kitchen table while Ruth fixed him a sandwich. Food, aside from nourishment, seemed to be her method of affirmative action.

In a breathless voice, Steve repeated everything he had heard from his father to the Donowitz couple. "My old man, he's the one who got your windows smashed. He sent a couple of his men out to Bethel Synagogue to scare you guys. I heard him talkin' on the phone about it last night."

Ruth folded her hands over her chest. "Did anyone follow you here, Steve?"

"No ma'am," Steve shook his head frantically. "I got your address from Mr. Contelli. He said that Mr. Donowitz and he were good friends and he told me everything that happened at the warehouse. He said that you blew a fuse because you cared more about your wife than anythin' else in the world, sir."

Steven swallowed hard and tried to look Donny in the eye. "Mr. Donowitz if that's not what a man is _supposed_ to do by stickin' up for his family and defending them, then to be quite honest I think the whole world's gone to hell."

Donny gave Steven a hard look. Then he glanced at Ruth and their silent exchange meant they agreed together. This kid was good, the kind of decent person that you're lucky to meet at least once in your lifetime. But if Donny wanted to get anything done right without getting a metal slug in his stomach then he'd need more information.

"What about your old man? Won't he know you're here?"

"My dad thinks I'm at boarding school," Steve admitted.

"What about your mother?" Ruth added.

Steve's eyes slid away uncomfortably. "My dad's got Celia now. She's a kept lady he goes to visit in Stamford every week."

Donny got up from his seat. "Well Steve, you're right about the world. It's fucked up and we're going to do something about it tonight. Does your old man keep a piece in the house?"

"A what? Oh, yeah," Steven nodded. "A hunting rifle in the dining room but it 'aint loaded. He's got a Walter PPK in the kitchen closet." His eyes widened. "You're not gonna...that is..."

"I'm not going to stoop to your old man's level," Donny said as he laced up his boots and picked up his baseball bat again. "But I'm gonna show him what happens when you mess with one Jew."

"What?"

Donny swung the baseball bat back and forth. "You mess with all of us."

A-A-A

Donny went from door to door knocking on every household of a person he could trust with his life. Nathan Straus, Isaac Ableman, and Zev Halpern all showed up with baseball bats or sticks. No brass knuckles, no chains or pistols. This was a lesson in the making.

Ruth didn't stand in the way and frankly, she knew it'd be foolish to try. Once Donny Donowitz had put his mind to the task there was no point in trying to steer him off course. He was not going to let the affair at the synagogue be forgotten. She still pulled the heavy metal flashlight out from under the bed and insisted that he take it along with him. Donny jammed it into his belt and accepted a quick kiss from Ruth along with a "be careful" from the cautious Jewish woman's instincts. Then he was gone.

"You sure you wanna do this?" Donny asked Steve when he and his friends all met outside Whitmore's house. "I'm not letting anyone chicken out right now."

"No, I'll see this through," Steven nodded. "My dad used to say I was such a wimp that it'd take forever for me to grow some balls and become a man just like him." His mouth perked up slightly. "Now that I've got the balls I don't wanna be like him anymore."

Sliding a key into the lock, Steven opened the back door for the men. The house wasn't quiet. There was a distinct light on upstairs and Donny spotted the yellow line under a door. Whitmore was talking loudly on the phone and his speech was slightly blurred.

"He's been drinking," Steve muttered. "He still can pack a punch so be careful."

One by one, the young men crept up the stairs towards the study. Donny made a motion to Nathan and upon Donny's order he brought his crowbar down hard upon the locked study knob. The metal stub snapped off easily and Donny kicked the door down.

Whitmore was wearing a red velvet bathrobe and large fuzzy slippers on his feet. He dropped the phone from his hand when he saw five figures in the doorway, all of them glaring at him and armed to the teeth. "What-what the hell is going on here?" he jabbered. His bulging eyes went up to his son. "Steve? Why aren't you in South Carolina?"

"Change of heart," Steve remarked.

Whitmore glowered at him and then turned his attention to Donny. "Donowitz? Didn't I fire you this week?"

"You did, buster."

"Then get out of my house right now before I call the cops," Whitmore snapped. "You heard me. Get out!"

Nathan cracked his knuckles together. "Don't you want to confess something, Whitmore?"

The puffy white eyebrows arched up dramatically. "I haven't got the slightest idea what you're talking about. Now get your backsides off my property before I pick up the phone and—"

_CRASH!_

Donny's baseball bat went smashing down onto the telephone, shattering it into a mess of tiny metal pieces. "Scared you didn't I?" he grinned broadly in Whitmore's face and showing rows and rows of teeth. Donny made a motion to his friends. "Get him on the table."

Yelling and shouting to no avail, Whitmore was grabbed by the shoulders and forced onto his desk. Nathan, Zev, and Isaac had pressed his skull as hard as they could into the wood.

"P-p-please!" Whitmore trembled, realizing he was outmatched and outnumbered. "Now now fellas...let's talk this over, no need to get hasty."

"I sure don't see anything to talk about. What about you, Nathan?" Donny asked his pal.

"Nope."

"Isaac? Zev?"

"We're good, Donny."

"Thanks." Donny made sure that Whitmore was listening closely. He grabbed the man by the back of his velvet coat and flipped him over onto his back. "First of all, this is for getting your filthy hands on my wife."

Donny's fist slammed into Whitmore's face. Blood spurted forth, gushing over his face from a snapping crack to the nose.

"And this one's for calling her a bitch."

Another crack in the face. Whitmore was gasping and wheezing like he was having a heart attack.

"And this is for those goons you sent throwing stones today."

_CRUNCH!_

"And while I'm at it, this is for bein' such a lousy dad."

_SMACK!_

Donny withdrew his fist, now splattered with blood. "You think that because you've got a fancy car and a whore and a lot of money you can pick on anyone you damn well please. Well, let me make this clear 'cuz you seem to keep your head up your ass, Whitmore. It ain't so pretty when someone else is holding the ace, is it?"

Whitmore let out a faint gurgling noise. "IS IT?" Donny shouted, spraying bits of spittle into his face.

"No, no it's not pretty," Whitmore babbled hysterically. His flabby face was all red and white from blood and fear and he was trembling like a leaf.

"Yeah, I didn't think so. You strip a man of everything he's got and then see if he's still a man. Or in your case, just a pathetic load of bull. This is why you shouldn't ever underestimate people like us. We're small but we'll keep fighting 'til hell freezes over," Donny threatened Whitmore.

He brought the baseball bat down onto the fancy polished desk. _WHACK!_ A heavy crack gave way through the lacquered wood and papers scattered to the floor.

"Stick his hand out," he ordered Nathan. The man compelled and Whitmore found his right arm stretched out clear across the desk. Donny slammed the bat down again just an inch from Whitmore's fingers. Then he slammed it down again on the other side of his hand.

"You want me to break your finger bones?" he shot at Whitmore.

"No! No! No!" he wailed.

"Then admit it. I wanna hear you say it." Whitmore heard another crashing sound. Donny must've broken a leg off the desk because it jerked and slanted heavily to the left. Whitmore found his arms angled towards the floor and his entire body still immobilized by the numerous hands.

"Say it!" Nathan ordered him. "Tell the truth. Did you order those goons after us? You got them to break our synagogue windows?"

"Yes, yes, I made the phone call," Whitmore stuttered weakly. Drool was trickling down his lips and mixing in with the blood. He shut his eyes and rocked his head from side to side. "Oh god please, don't hurt me. I beg you, I'll do anything you want. I'll give you anything. Just leave me alone! PLEASE!"

"Say you're sorry." Donny shook his head madly. "Say you're sorry, you son of a bitch, for messing with us and don't you think you'll pull out such a fucking stupid idea ever again."

"I'M SORRY! I'M SORRY!" Whitmore wailed at the top of his lungs.

Nathan, Joseph, Issac, and Steven turned to Donny for a command. He stood there, calm and posed with the baseball bat in his hand like some mythical sword used to slay the dragon. But the sight of this man crying and slobbering and begging to Donny sickened him. There was no point in trying to break him anymore. He was just a pathetic man, weak and powerless to the core. Donny realized he didn't care much for beating the shit out of him that night.

"Fine," he shrugged at last. "Nathan, pick him up." The big man was hauled off his desk and thrust back into his chair.

Donny swung the baseball bat menacingly above Whitmore's head before pressing the tip hard against his forehead. "You are going to write out a check for one hundred dollars to Bethel Synagogue right now. Got it?"

"Y-yes sir." Whitmore's shaky arms fumbled for a fountain pen while the wooden bat continued to jam into his skull.

"And you got any spare cash around here?"

"Yes. T-t-take the whole box if you w-w-ant," Whitmore's teeth chattered frantically.

"I want two hundred dollars in small bills while you're at it. No funny business," Donny warned him.

Whitmore's hand shook so much that he got ink all over the first check and had to write it again. But he managed to finish the second and extend it to Donny, who snatched the check up and stuffed it into his pocket. Then he gave the key to Nathan, who found the cash box and plunked into Whitmore's lap. The bills were counted out and also added to Donny's pocket. Finally, he released the wooden club's pressure on Whitmore.

"Now let me make this clear. If I hear one single peep from the cops, one word of this uttered to anyone or some other fucking problem going down then I am going to beat your brain and ass into the ground until you bleed to death. Got it?" Donny growled heatedly.

Whitmore's face had gone ashen gray with fear but he wobbled his neck loosely. "I got it, I got it," he mumbled.

"Good." Donny grabbed the man by the lapels and yanked Whitmore's face up to his own, trying hard not to breathe in the fumes of too much liquor. Donny's lips were pulled back into a fierce snarl, his eyes blazed with wrath as he leered into the man's face.

"You see this face, Whitmore? This is the face of Jewish vengeance. Don't forget it."

A-A-A

The night air felt cool and clear after the stuffiness of Whitmore's house. They all scrambled out the door and into the streets feeling elated and relieved. "Boy, you sure showed him, Donny!" Isaac proudly slapped him on the back. "That'll teach Whitmore to mess with the best of Boston."

"Yeah, yeah," Donny said, waving a hand away carelessly. "Just don't throw me a parade or any kind of shit, all right? Here, Steve." He took the $200 of rolled-up bills and handed it to Steve. "We owe you one and a million."

"Really?" The teen's eyes grew wide with delight. "Thanks a lot, Mr. Donowitz!" Steven grabbed Donny's hand and pumped it up and down. "I don't know how to thank you enough."

"I do, kid. Want my advice?" Donny told him. "Take the next train leaving Boston for San Antonio. Get your ass outta town and never look back."

"I'll do better than that. I'm gonna enlist," Steven said, his chest puffing up a bit with pride. "No point in waiting on our asses for those Krauts to come get us. I reckon we've got a country worth fightin' for so we'd better start getting ready for war if y'know what I mean, Mr. Donowitz."

A-A-A

Donny went straight to Rabbi Markus' house to drop off the check. He found the rabbi still up in his study even though the clock's hands were ticking up to one in the morning. There was a half-finished letter stuck in the typewriter too.

"Just something about a petition to the White House," Rabbi Markus informed him. "The Jewish Coalition of America is trying to notify the government the urgency of getting more refugees out of Europe."

Donny's brief moment of pride was quickly deflated when Rabbi Markus sighed wearily. "I don't like it, Donny. I don't like it one bit," he went on. "For years now Hitler said the Jews were the cause of problems in Germany but not everyone would listen or take his threats seriously. Now that countries are being annexed and hatred of the Jewish people is out of control, people are being wiped out right and left."

"Why the hell don't people do more to stop those goons?" he demanded.

"People are afraid of the Nazis. And fear is a very powerful weapon, Donny."

Donny looked down at the check in his hand and suddenly, the entire night's escapade seemed like a foolish and silly game. "I was going to give you this but it doesn't matter anymore. It's just a goddamn stupid piece of paper," he said in disgust.

"It'll fix the windows," Rabbi Markus assured him. "And we can use the rest of it to send to the Hadassah Fund."

"Is that what 'fixing the world' means? Saving the world one friggin' window at a time while lives and buildings burn down by the thousands?" Donny lashed out heatedly. "Why the hell do people put up with this stuff? You know why those jackasses threw stones at our synagogue? Because they weren't scared of us. Because that's what the Nazis are doing to anyone in their path! They're going keep killing and killing us 'till there's nothing left."

Rabbi Markus sighed deeply. He took off his glasses and began polishing them, perhaps to pass the time while he searched for the appropriate response to the hot-headed young man who stood in his doorway.

"You're right," Rabbi Markus said at last when he placed the spectacles back on his face. "You are quite right, Donny Donowitz. So now that we've agreed on this particular topic...what are you going to do about it?"

"Me? I—" Donny stopped and frowned. What was he going to do about it? Take on the Whitmores' of the world one at a time with his fists? That didn't seem very satisfying to him.

"_Mr. Donowitz, if that's not what a man is supposed to do by stickin' up for his family and defending them—then to be quite honest I think the whole world's gone to hell."_

"Let me give you a piece of advice," Rabbi Markus suggested to Donny. "Your wife should be the first person you confide in and the last person you yell at."

A-A-A

Ruth seemed to be putting all the pieces together when Donny showed up at nearly three in the morning. But this time she wasn't up waiting for him by reading. She had been praying.

He saw the leather-bound book of Psalms she set aside when he walked through the door. Ruth went to him and put her arms around his neck, pressing her face against his shoulder and letting her fingers curl into the lapels of his jacket. The stubble of his cheeks and chin lightly grazed against her skin and she welcomed it, welcomed the reality of having a human being of flesh and blood who could walk through the door and touch her body and soul in ways that nobody else could.

"Is everything all right?" she murmured into his ear.

"No," he confessed. "It's not all right."

She felt the heavy hands take her by the shoulders and gently push her back enough so they could look each other in the eye.

"I'm going to enlist," Donny announced. "Some people may wanna stay out of the war a while longer but there's talk of army camps already being set around upstate New York. I ain't waiting for a blitzkrieg to strike Massachusetts so I'm gonna get started on my trigger finger early."

Ruth's lips parted as if she wanted to say something but only a faint croak came out of the back of her throat. Donny's hand slid to her elbow, half-expecting her to burst out arguing with him or question his decision.

Instead her mouth closed and she nodded slowly. "I should've known I couldn't keep you to myself forever," Ruth admitted as she brushed a wayward lock of brown hair behind one ear. "Makes me seem selfish while you're willing to risk your neck for other—"

"Don't talk like that babe," he hushed her quickly. "You're a fine woman, Ruth. And you've been a damn good wife."

"Thank you," Ruth murmured tenderly as a warm pink glow came into her cheeks.

She began to study the harsh lines and sharp features of Donny's face that had become second nature to her. By now she knew those details wouldn't ever soften into a gentle or timid countenance. He was all fire and ambition at heart and nobody could ever keep him down, no matter how people joked that Ruth married Donny just to "tame" his wild nature. That couldn't be further from the truth. The flame of energy was part of Donny's spirit just like his mind and soul. Ruth accepted it and welcomed it. She knew very well that to deny Donny Donowitz his true calling would mean snuffing out the flame which had warmed her these last few precious months.

"There's no point in dreaming of a white picket fence when other folks don't have homes of their own," Ruth added. "So if no one else is going to stand up to the Nazis-"

"I'm gonna be that man who does," Donny assured his wife with a confident nod. "You just wait, Ruth. I'm gonna work my ass off but I'm gonna be amazing."

"I know you will." Ruth swallowed hard. She covered her trembling mouth with a hand but Donny had already seen the look of fear on her face.

"I'm sorry, Donny," she stammered. "I know what you have to do but I don't want to give you up..."

A hand cupped the back of Ruth's head and tipped it back slightly, just enough for Donny's mouth to cover Ruth's lips. She kissed him back tenderly and sweetly as her fingers slid through his black hair and curled around the nape of his neck. But it wasn't the kiss, so much as the embrace, that made her quiver from head to toe when his hands clasped securely around her back and he pulled her hard into his chest, hugging and holding her for life's sake.

Donny broke his mouth away long enough to press his lips to the center of her forehead.

"Don't say your goodbyes just yet, Baby Ruth," he assured her.

A-A-A

_Two months later:_

Donny was annoyed with the paperwork that went though enrolling into boot camp: IDs, medical records, contracts, legal agreements...blah, blah, blah. At this rate it'd take forever to get over to Europe and damnit, Hitler had already invaded Poland. How on earth did anyone expect him to sit on his ass and just wait for more cities to go toppling down? At least the early recruits had advanced training to fall back on. Eight weeks later and a chrome bus into the mountains of upstate New York, Donny was ready to face the unexpected.

Not too many people were supposed to know about Camp Giborah-a lot of folks were still edgy about getting into war-for that reason which is probably why they set it up on some godforsaken place that was far away from most big cities and it took at bus ride or 15 miles on foot to get to the nearest town. Donny could already hear people hemming and hawing, "Well, just in case we need to fight after all..."

Fuck a duck.

At least Camp Giborah was in a pretty place. Mountains were covered in rolls of evergreen that stretched on for miles and the air smelled amazingly crisp and clean with just the sweetest trace of flowers. Donny stepped on the bus and inhaled deeply, inwardly wondering why he hadn't thought of taking Ruth to a place like this for a honeymoon.

Captain Alex Reed was their commanding officer. He had a pinkish square face, jaws that seemed to be always snapping on a toothpick or wad of chewing gum, and annoying little bristles of yellow hair that stood up straight from a shiny head.

"Hmmmph!" he sneered when he saw the line of new recruits standing attentively on grounds of their training camp. "I suppose you all know why you're here but you've got not a darn clue why I'm here. My name is Captain Alex Donovan Reed and what I am gonna do is make MEN out of you SISSIES!"

_Sissies, shmissies_, Donny thought to himself. _This goon looks ready to join a vaudeville show._

"YOU!" Captain Reed barked at Donny. "What is your name, officer?"

"Donowitz, sir!" he answered back sharply.

Reed's eyes narrowed dangerously at Donny. "When I ask you something you will address me by my full name. Is that clear?"

"Yes sir, Captain Alex Donovan Reed!" Donny was beginning to enjoy himself. If the army wouldn't ship him off to Europe for six to twelve months then he might as well make the most of his time at Camp Giborah. Besides, he was in good enough fighting shape so he might as well polish up his comedy routine.

"Now then officer. What is your name?"

"Dov Yehuda ben Shmuel," he answered promptly. There was a snicker from among the other men who were watching the scene with more than mild interest.

"Whaaaaaat?" Reed asked, opening his mouth so wide that the toothpick nearly fell out of his mouth.

"Donny Donowitz, Captain Reed SIR!"

"Donowitz, eh?" Reed's eyes had become beady with suspicion."You a kike?"

_Oh fuck, here we go again._

"No sir, I'm a Negro," Donny answered promptly. "And part-Chinese on my mother's side."

A roar of laughter rang up from the line of men.

"SHADDDUP!" Reed hollered at them before whirling back to Donny. "Since you think you're so funny Donowitz, why don't you entertain us and give me fifty push ups!"

"Yes sir!" Donny dropped to his knees and began doing push ups, but did them with his heels facing Captain Reed. He had no intention of looking at that man's boots.

"I can't hear you!" Reed yelled, cupping a hand over one ear.

"TWENTY ONE! TWENTY TWO! TWENTY THREE!" Donny shouted. After fifty push ups he had only just started breaking a sweat and didn't look the slightest bit fatigued. A few of the new recruits looked impressed but Captain Reed looked ready to throttle Donny.

"I don't like your lip, Donowitz."

"That's aright, sir. You're probably a lousy kisser yourself." Donny got up from his push ups and wiped away a lock of black hair that had fallen into his face. "Anything else, sir?"

The toothpick in Reed's mouth rolled from side to side. He might've ordered Donny to go fight in a gladiator pit but instead they were ushered on to the rest of orientation.

A-A-A

The water in the shower stalls was lukewarm at best and there were a few nasty water bugs crawling around on the cement floor. Donny wasn't squeamish but he knew he'd had to chuck out the memory of a white-tiled bathroom floor and two compatible faucets if he wanted to see this through. He busied himself by running through the memory of the other recruits and trying to think of anyone in particular that stood out to him while scrubbing his back and face.

_Can't think of a single other- oh wait, yeah…._

There had been a pale-faced kid with huge googly eyes at the back of the line who reminded Donny of a deer caught in the headlights. Glasses would actually be an improvement on him. Donny was sure he was Jewish.

"Nice comedy routine you put on today," one of the other fellows said from down the showers taps. "Are we gonna get a second act tomorrow?"

"Sure. Just lemme talk to my agent first," Donny said. The other man laughed and waved to Donny before walking out of the shower room.

Then Donny heard a comment loud and clear right behind him. "Yeah, you can tell he's a kike just like Reed said. A long nose and a short cock."

Donny stepped out from under the water and quickly looked around. Poor ol' Googly Eyes was being inched into a corner by two other men. One had a lot of red hair on his arms and chest and the other sported an eagle tattoo on his arm. Neither of them looked very friendly so he decided to intervene.

Donny tapped the redhead on the shoulder. "Something wrong, mister?" he asked lightly. "Anyone got a problem with their cock then I'll fix it right away."

The redhead turned around to face Donny. They were about the same height but Donny had a lot more muscle in his arms and chest, not to mention a way for getting people to know when he meant business.

The redhead looked him up and down before jerking a thumb to his peer. "Never mind," he mumbled as his eyes slid carelessly away from Donny. "C'mon Verns. Let's scram." Tattoo Man, alis Verns, slunk out of the shower room right after the redhead.

Donny took a step closer to Googly Eyes. "You aright?" he asked.

"Yeah, sure," the other one mumbled. "Thanks for the help."

"Anytime." Donny picked up a towel and began drying himself off. Googly Eyes nervously thrust out a hand. "My name's Utivich, by the way."

"Utivich?" Donny's brow wrinkled up. Definitely Eastern European background in there somewhere but a tough name to swallow. "So what's your last name?"

"Utivich _is_ my last name. My first name's Smithson."

"Smithson Utivich." Donny threw down the towel. "That's a shitty name, kid. Why'd your parents do that? They like museums or are they just mad at your for something?"

"Oh, they've been mad at me for a while now. Ever since I said I was going to sign up." Utivich managed to crack a smile. He was losing his edginess, maybe when he realized that Donny wasn't going to rip his head off.

"Play baseball?" Donny shot out. "If I hear you're a Yankees fan then I may just have to-"

"Chicago Cubs," Utivich blurted out. He waited for Donny's approval while carefully wrapping the towel around his waist. To his relief, the big man slapped him heartily on the shoulder.

"They're tough fighters in the Windy City. Good job, Utivich," Donny winked at him. "I may actually start to like you."

A-A-A

Author's note: I apologize if Donny's remark about being a Negro and part-Chinese offended anyone (Political correctness wasn't the same in 1930's America) and sincerely mean it that I didn't intend to poke fun at racism. He's just Donny being Donny.

Note: "Dov Yehuda ben Shmuel" when Donny addresses Reed is what I presume to be Donny's Hebrew name: Dov Judah son of Samuel. Dov means "bear" in Hebrew.


	3. Chapter 3

Utivich was actually from the Big Apple and only let this fact slip out three weeks later. He was luck to have fallen on Donny's good side anyway because his crash course in the army—and the first eight weeks attempting to learn some real-life self defense—was downright awful. He would've packed up and headed back to the Lower East Side if Donowitz hadn't told him how to make a proper fist and hit a man in the gut whenever someone felt like slugging Utivich.

The cause of all this fell upon Captain Reed's shoulders. He had a mouth bigger than Donny's and an ego up to the stratosphere but under all that hot air he didn't have much personality or common sense. If Donny's mother was there she would have rolled up her sleeves and spanked Captain Reed on his backside for being such a _nudnuck_.

The man turned a blind eye to his officers' antics and practical jokes as soon as the daily training schedule ended. And when nearly a fourth of all the rifles went missing, Captain Reed just said he'd order some more of them and went back to his office to read dirty magazines. He also ignored the nurses when they complained some of the men were harassing them. Reed just said if women were going to be such sissies then they should run home back to their mamas and the safety of their kitchens.

Of course Reed would change his mind when someone would burst into his office hollering, "Markson didn't do nuffin' but Donowitz is gonna KICK HIS ASS!" Then he'd run outside blowing his whistle and ordering Donny to get whichever idiot out of a headlock, not caring what someone had said about his mother or why Utivich had bleeding knuckles from a practical joke gone overboard. Everyone else would whoop and cheer while Donny would have to be pulled off whoever had the guts to dare him on before he'd be condemned to KP duty.

One frosty night Donny, Utivich, and Adam Tien had been sentenced to peel several hundred potatoes by hand in the mess hall while everyone else had gone into town to drink beer and play pool.

Adam had a smart mouth and ear for action—qualities that Donny admired-but being a Chinese-American citizen meant he got the same scornful treatment as Donny and Utivich. The only difference was that Adam got pestered for his eyes instead of his nose.

"At least they don't know it right when they see you," Adam was saying. He scraped his peeler across a potato with a scornful spurt of energy. "You could pass yourself off as an Italian millionaire or even some film star—"

"Hollywood's the last place I wanna end up ," Donny said. "Why the hell'd I wanna walk around a hot town all day with greasy hair and jabbering news reporters in my face?"

He had finally finished a potato and dropped it into the giant vat on the floor. _Reed sure knows how to torture a man_, he mused inwardly. _Ruth would have these potatoes peeled and cleaned in a flash_.

"Yeah but if you actually shaved more often and put on a tux, you'd fool a lot of people," Adam managed a wry grin.

He turned his attention to the other man. "You said you nearly got into MIT, Utivich. What happened?"

"I couldn't read the board right," Utivich said quietly.

"What the fuck?" Adam was stunned. There was no way the Massachusetts Institute of Technology wouldn't have accepted Smithson Utivich.

Utivich shrug and carefully turned his potato over so he wouldn't cut his thumb. "I dunno. I can understand engineering and chemistry when professors talk it out in class. I can pass lab work with flying colors too. But at the university interview they made me look at a big board of compound drawings and when I copied my equations over they said I wrote half of 'em backwards."

"So?" Donny brandished his peeler like a pistol. "They can't kick you out for still knowing the right stuff. They wanted to do a lobotomy on your head or something?"

"No, I just didn't pass the admissions exam so I walked out." Utivich's shoulders sagged slightly as he handed over this last piece of information. "Must be something wrong with my brain."

"That's bullshit. There's nothing wrong with you, Utivich," Adam insisted. "You're the best freakin' genius in the Northeast!"

This was true. Utivich could take a gun apart, clean it, and put it back together faster than anyone else at Camp Giborah. He knew every chemical compound necessary to create the perfect explosive and could recite the periodic table backwards in his sleep.

"Screw those jerks," Donny assured Utivich. "They've just got sticks up their asses 'cuz you know more than them about that Whizman genius who helped the Brits in the last war."

"Weizmann. Chaim Weizmann," he corrected Donny politely. "I contacted him last year and he sent me back letters about his latest acetone breakthroughs." Utivich's voiced perked up with a hint of pride. "He's a chemist and a good friend of Winston Churchill."

"Stay on the Brits better side if you ask me," Adam nodded.

Donny finally threw down his peeler with disgust and slapped a hand to his thigh. "Goddam it, Utivich! If you've got all those brains then you've gotta think of some way to get us out of this hell hole, can't you?"

His snapping comment caused something inside Utivich's brain to flicker on like a light bulb. "Maybe I can. D'you guys know where they keep that old apple machine?"

"The crank-and-knob one? Yeah," Adam nodded.

"Go haul it out," Utivich told them before jumping out of his seat and running out the door. Donny didn't know what Utivich had in mind but if Captain Reed thought he was going to torture them with pounds of potatoes then they'd bleed their gums to find a way to beat his malevolent idea of a "discipline system".

Utivich came back just as Donny and Adam had pulled out the machine that peeled and cored apples from the kitchen basement. He was carrying a rubber fan belt, two bicycle pedals, and some other odds and ends along with his tool kit. He made them stand back while he bent over the apple machine and began to go to work. Both men watched with attentive curiosity while Utivich poked, prodded, and tinkered with his wrench.

Ten minutes later he asked Adam to sit down and place his feet on the pedals. "In the stirrups" Utivich explained. Adam pedaled the device which tugged on the fan belt attached to the apple machine. When Utivich fit a potato into the machine it peeled off a long perfect coil of potato skin before landing into the vat.

"Utivich, that's your first Noble Prize!" Donny punched him in the shoulder happily. "Adam, lemme try that thingamajig next."

They took turns pedaling and popping potatoes one after another into the gadget until the entire vat was filled to the brim with smooth clean white potatoes. There were still a mountain of leftover long skinny potato tubes left where the apple corer had drilled holes into each potato but the outcome was still a success. They had finished the entire night's work in less than an hour.

When they were finished Adam picked up one of the tubes and took a bite of raw potato. "These remind you of something, Donowitz?"

"Potato dicks," he smirked knowingly. "How about we call it a night fellas and go get some coffee?"

A-A-A

Joanne Smith was the head nurse of Camp Giborah, a tall blond dame with legs up to Donny's chin and an easy-going smile that came through half-lidded eyes. She had hair pulled back into a high ponytail and bright red lipstick painted onto her boyish mouth.

"Sit down and I'll get you boys some coffee and pie," she said as she kicked a spare chair over and rolled leisurely to her feet. Adam, Donny, and Utivich made themselves comfortable among the other nurses who found a certain appeal and roguish charm in "that big fella" who had a huge grin and dark twinkling eyes. Thank heavens he didn't yank on their skirts like the other men. Everyone spent another hour sipping hot coffee and talking about their families back home.

Joanne admitted the pie was store-bought when she removed it from a cardboard box. "I can't cook for the life of me. Ma raised us out of tuna cans and beans," she added while lighting a cigarette. "Serves me right for leaving home when I was 17 and getting on the stage."

Utivich looked up from his coffee. "You were an actress?"

"Something like that. Three weeks on Broadway," Joanne purred as she pulled the cigarette out from between her teeth and exhaled, letting smoke unfurl from her nostrils.

"Things got pretty shitty in show business for a while so I pulled out every last penny for a hospital course—somehow I thought girls in white got more respect—but here we end up in the goddam Catskill mountains. Nine out of every time times some jerk wants me to sit on his stomach instead of patching up bruises. For Christ's sake! At least I can still cut a rug when it comes to tango."

"I'd like to see that someday," Donny told her. Joanne fixed her eyes on him and watched his mouth part into a flirtatious grin.

"Easy, soldier. You'll get your share in," she assured him as she lightly tapped an index finger on his cheek.

Donny offered to walk Joanne back to her bunk house afterwards and she agreed eagerly. It was near midnight and the other men wouldn't be back for hours, which left the camp peaceful and and silent for a few precious hours. When Joanne got to her front porch she took the time to turn around and face him. Then she draped her arms leisurely around Donny's neck and pressed her lips to his.

She tasted smoky and sinful, delicious and spirited to his impatient body. Her lipstick had a tangy cherry flavor that lingered on his mouth while the tall lithe nurse ranked her fingertips across the hairs on his arms and made his skin tingle with unexpected pleasure. Joanne laughed playfully after receiving lips that pressed into her neck and near the pulsing point of her ear. "C'mon, soldier. We've got all night," she teased lightly.

Every hair on his body was on edge like a live wire. He wanted this, he _deserved_ it after weeks of putting up with so much shit. And there was Joanne, looking tempting with her lush ruby mouth, eager face, and a white cotton blouse opened just enough to show the peachy skin of a generous bosom. She undid the ribbon in her hair and let blonde tresses tumble down her back, shaking her head slightly for the adequate hint of charm.

"Don't let me stay up all night for no reason, handsome." Her fingers sifted smoothly through her hair. "Nobody's gonna find out."

She watched his lips move but nothing came out. His dark eyes flickered up and down her body with wild animation. His mind was caressing her even though his hands hadn't moved from her waist. To Joanne's dismay, the mad light in his eyes slowly dimmed away as he released his grip from her and stepped back. She felt the chilly air that had formed a barrier between them and shivered from inside of her thin blouse.

"Damnit woman," he said at last. "You're too good for the likes of us."

Joanne looked puzzled. "I don't get you, soldier."

"You're beautiful. You're ten times better than whatever Reed calls you. And everything in me says do you in a heartbeat but-damnit Joanne-I swear to God if I do it, I'm gonna wake up and we'll both regret it."

Joanne tried to crack a smile but found it hard to tease with him when he looked so somber like this. Donny's voice had become strangely quiet and for once, even sensible. There was a deep tone of sincerity when he talked that she hadn't heard coming from a man in a very long.

"Are you turning me down, soldier?"

"Yeah." He swallowed and his Adam's apple bobbed up and down wildly. "No offense."

"None taken," Joanne murmured. Her fingers toyed with another cigarette but she let this one slip through them and fall to the ground. She wasn't used to having men turn her down let alone try to be civil with her. "Just lemme know if I did something wrong to—"

"It's not you, sweetheart," he was quick to say. "But I don't wanna hurt you or someone else 'cuz you both deserve a hell of a lot better than what this world has given you." He finally took a few steps away from Joanne and with his hands in his pockets, walked off away from the blaring lights of the porch. Joanne watched Donny's figure get swallowed up into the darkness while she kept a hand pressed tightly over her beating heart.

A-A-A

_January 5th, 1940_

_Dear Donny,_

_Since I'm not around I'm going to tell you to turn your soaking socks inside out and hang them up to dry the minute you take them off your feet. Otherwise they'll get smelly and stay wet and you'll catch cold—and then what'll happen when you get to Europe? You'll be wiping your nose with your sleeve every other second! How can you hold a gun with one other hand? Yes, that's what will happen unless you remember to T__URN YOUR SOCKS INSIDE OUT__! (I will underline this to make certain you are reading)_

_I've got to admit I was surprised to hear they were shipping you off to Virginia to meet with the rest of the 29th division but it's a good think you don't have to put up with Captain Reed much longer. He sounds like a dimwit from our last telephone call. Hope things are improving under Colonel Kemp and congratulations on your promotion to staff sergeant! I'm proud of you but don't exaggerate next time. Otherwise, Joseph Birnbaum will go around town telling everyone that Donny Donowitz has to crawl backwards through the mud with a tennis ball in his mouth to get a promotion._

_Joseph's first tooth fell out this week and he was ecstatic until the family dog ate it and then he started crying. I made it up to him after his haircut by taking him to see "The Wizard of Oz" at Johnson's Cinema but it was too quiet in the theater—I could actually hear myself think! The most exciting part was when the Flying Monkeys came out and poor little Joseph started to wail hysterically. I had to take him out of the theater to calm him down so yes, your company was sorely missed that day. _

_Thanks for sending me that book about the Apache Indians. I don't think they took scalping as seriously as the movies make it sound but it's a good read. Hope that box of mandelbread I packed came to you intact. I wrapped it in fresh waxed paper for a good reason._

_Brace yourself, mister. I sold the apartment on Sallsburg and have moved in with your parents after your mother agreed I shouldn't sit around an empty home all by myself. Unlike your mother I can't get the darn loops to sit straight on the needles but God bless her, she's patient in teaching me to knit. She's a whiz when it comes to making hats and things, which is why you'll find that great scarf in this package. She wanted to make it bright red and white for the Soxs but I figured the last thing you want is to look like a moving target in No Man's Land so dark blue it is. Your mother told me all about your self-haircut when you were five with the razor. I nearly died laughing to hear how you turned yourself half-bald in a personal grooming experiment. _

_Your father still keeps the barbershop spic 'n span and closes at the precise hour, not a moment earlier, even on a slow day. "A Donowitz always keeps his word", he tells me. I'll give your dad a lot of credit for his integrity, Donny. You're very fortunate to have a family like this one—don't ever forget that._

_Al Contelli passes by the barbershop from time to time for updates on how you're doing. He tells me the government took over the shipping company and Al is now "executive director" for some guy named Senator Truman. I don't know much about a political from Missouri but Al says they get better wages and treated with a lot more respect than when the shipping company was under you-know-who._

_Remember Steve Whitmore? His original plan to go to Texas took a detour and now he's in Kentucky. He still sends messages back to Boston and sounds happy as pie. The dear kid is still too young to be drafted but he'll be 16 in April and has been taking instruction courses in military service. Steve already knows how to fix machinery and drive a jeep so he can run errands on an army base._

_You'd better finish up the chocolate cake I packed into the tin 'cuz it doesn't get better after two weeks although frankly, I don't see that as being much of a problem with your stomach! It's your belated birthday present along with your mom's scarf and to compensate for missing us on Hannukah. I've also enclosed some copies of PM Magazine from New York City. That Dr. Seuss' cartoon drawings are pretty funny. I think the guy should publish a book someday._

_Your friend Private Utivich sounds like a darling. Do you think I could set him up with Leah Cohen? You must be getting over your disdain for the Yankees to start having friends from Manhattan or did I speak too soon? Your mother just told me to ask you if Utivich wants to come back for Passover. You __are__ coming, aren't you Donny? The months are flying by faster than I can count. Whenever I read the headlines I realize every day that passes by means you're another day closer to getting into that mess so I want to make the rest of your time here count. _

_Love,_

_Your Baby Ruth_

A-A-A

_FIVE MONTHS LATER:_

Standing on the outskirts of a small forest, Colonel Matthew Kemp watched the smoke from test fires drifting upwards from the trees. The sounds of gunshots and feet scrambling echoed around them although no one had reached the clearing yet. Nevertheless, shouts of "man down!" and "fall back!" could be heard echoing all over the valley. The cries flitted up through the green leaves and pierced the serene blue sky above their heads.

Colonel Kemp made a note on the clipboard before tucking it under his left armpit. To his right, Corporal Adam Tien stood poised with a pocket watch in his hand.

The man glanced aside. "Time, Corporal?"

"Nine minutes and eighteen seconds, sir." Adam was hell-bent on keeping his records straight, especially in the presence of Colonel Kemp. It was an honor and a privilege to be working directly with one of their most respectable officers in the division.

"Is this exercise so important?" Captain Reed grumbled to the left. Adam nearly saw a roll of the eyes from behind Colonel Kemp's glasses when he turned to address the disgruntled Reed.

"A standard routine of self-defense and combat training will be expected for field service. So yes, this is necessary, Captain Reed," Kemp said in a calm even voice.

Reed made a face like sour milk. "I don't like it, I just think that Donowitz is a bastard with his head up the-"

"Sergeant Donowitz is one of our top drilling officers and under my personal supervision-not yours, Captain Reed." There was a parental twinge of irritation in Kemp's voice. "You may outrank me in the line of duty but not in the service of the American government. Would you please excuse Corporal Tien and myself for the rest of the afternoon?"

Adam pretended to study the watch in his palm with cautious scrutiny so he wouldn't start laughing in Reed or Kemp's faces. He watched with relief as Reed jammed his hands into his pockets and with a muttering scowl, sulked off to the barracks.

A no-nonsense man in his late 50's, Kemp had steel gray hair and wore round wire-rimmed spectacles. He had the drive of a major league sports coach and the wisdom of a university professor. Everyone liked him—especially Donny. Unlike Reed, Kemp hardly ever raised his voice and never shouted. All he had to do was say, "That'll do officer" and everyone would settle down. He was a firm commanding leader who listened attentively to detail and whenever an officer was lagging, he'd hone that person's skills until everyone was on par to be fit for the service.

Instead of chastising Donny for his loudmouth manners or yelling back in his face, Kemp had walked right up to Donny on the first day of afternoon calisthenics asked how he'd like he assist in training the younger recruits. Donny responded positivity in a heartbeat. Kemp had nodded and added, "There's a lot of fire in that throat of yours, Donowitz. Make sure you keep it well-tuned."

Donny's energy and temper were quickly channeled into getting other officers into the best of shape while honing his own fighting skills. If he did yell, it was only under Kemp's supervision. He was proving himself to be an admirable rifle teacher and fearless leader during the training sessions. Every time Kemp gave Sergeant Donowitz a new exercise or rehearsal mission to carry out the report came back with competent officers and high scores. Within their third months Donny and Utivich were quickly promoted to Advanced Combat Training while Adam Tien had been assigned to Tactics.

Today, Kemp had asked specially for Adam's assistance in timing the exercise while the men in the forest were working to avoid the traps, race the course, and safely carry the dummies back to the starting point. "Those eagle eyes of yours may spot something I don't," Kemp added. "So keep them wide open for me, Corporal."

"Yes sir."

Kemp removed his glasses and wiped them with his sleeve. "Corporal, have you ever heard of xenophobia?"

"No, sir."

"It's a condition when a person thinks anyone who disagrees with him must be an alien from outer space. Reed's got it real bad. I'm afraid there's no cure, not even a surgical procedure." A wry grin touched the creased marks of Kemp's elderly face. "What we need is to find a way to cure this troop of Reed."

Adam permitted himself a soft chuckle along with Kemp.

Branches snapped in the forest and a burning log rolled forward from the thickest part of the forest. "I see them, sir. Here they come!" Adam quickly jerked to attention.

Kemp slid the glasses back onto the bridge of his nose and adjusted them slightly. It was just in time to see nine men, lead by Sergeant Donowitz, out of the clearing. They were all filthy with dust and ashes clinging to their grimy hair. Mud plastered to their faces while their khaki uniforms were sopping wet. But they were all grinning and lugging the dummies along like fresh trophy prizes from the day's kill.

Donny dropped the dummy soldier at Kemp's feet, shoved his heels together, and saluted. "Time, Colonel?"

Kemp's eyes went to Adam who checked his watch. "Eleven minutes and thirteen seconds sir."

"Thirteen seconds. Hmmmmm..." Kemp studied his clipboard while the other men, along with Donny, waited with baited breath and taking deep gulps of clean sweet fresh air. It was a miracle to their aching lungs after running around in the smoky haze of the forest and they wouldn't take it for granted.

Finally, after what seemed like forever, Kemp nodded to the soldiers.

"Congratulations, troop. You've just beaten our record for the fastest rescue mission in Forest McAdams," he nodded in approval. Everyone whooped and cheered with delight. Donny seized one of his comrades by the waist and lifted him a foot off the ground, yelling a war-cry of triumph. "Yeah, we showed him! Who're the men around here?"

"We are! We are!" everyone chanting as they slapped each other's palms in high-fives. The victory cheering would've gone on longer had Kemp not dismissed everyone to go to the showers. "Mess hall at eighteen hundred hours," he reminded them. "And look smart, boys. We've got a few visitors from out of town coming tonight."

"Who?" asked one inquisitive man.

Kemp merely pointed to the showers with his pen. As everyone filed past him, his cool gray eyes met Donny's gaze. "You too, Donowitz. Make sure you put on a clean shirt." They exchanged salutes before Kemp strolled back towards his office.

"Gosh, this thing is heavy! What'd they fill it with, rocks?" Adam grunted as he tried to help Donny get the dummy off the ground.

"Yeah." Donny dug a hand into the stuffing of the dummy and pulled out several red bricks before tossing them aside. He slung the now-lighter mock soldier over one shoulder and began walking towards the barracks while whistling a jaunty tune. "What's eating Kemp? I didn't fuck anything up, did I?"

"No, not from what I saw," Adam insisted. Then he paused. "Wonder if it was..."

Donny stopped in his tracks. "What? Y'don't think Reed's gonna get me kicked out, do you?"

"Even if he wanted to, Kemp wouldn't let it happen. But I did see a couple of jeeps pulling up near the officer this morning." Adam suddenly glanced around in case he would be charged with spilling out confidential information.

Donny made a gesture over his heart. "Scout's honor, Tien. Lips are sealed."

"With your lips, it's hard to tell," Adam said. Nevertheless, he went on. "Two men in uniforms and four fellas in suits. I think they were the Feds."

"From Washington?" Donny rubbed the back of his sore neck. "Wonder what they want with Kemp."

"Don't know. Oh wait, and one of those uniform guys was a little creepy. Not in the ghostly sense, more like a Mr. Know-It-All," Adam went on. "He had a big Bowie knife in his belt and wore Indian leather boots. He moved around the jeep like he wasn't scared of anything, not even if a wild animal came out of the forest to rip his lungs out. And he had a big scar around his neck." Adam motioned to his own throat with a hand.

Donny was warming up to the mystery of the newcomer. "Like a knife cut?"

"No, thicker than that. Like a rope burn or something."

All Donny had to do was picture the scar in his mind and it clicked into place. "Lynching." He gave a low whistle between his teeth. "Tien my friend, we'll be dining with royalty tonight if that's the man I think he is."

A-A-A

"How do you like your coffee, Lieutenant Raine?"

"Make it sit up and bark, Colonel."

"Black it is." Kemp poured out a stream of hot liquid black coffee into the guest's cup and handed it to him. The lieutenant eased back in his chair and lightly propped his booted feet up on the small table between them. To any other man, Kemp would've condemned the gesture as one of rudeness. But in these circumstances it was a form of casual respect.

The man in the salt-and-pepper mustache who had been addressed as Lieutenant Raine began sipping his coffee even while it was still steaming hot. "Mighty fine regiment you got going on here, Kemp."

"We've got a lot of good men around here. They're the one who keep it going," Kemp nodded modestly.

"Yep. Well, I'm not one to beat around the bush so if y'don't mind, I'd like to get down to business." Raine set his half-drunken cup of coffee aside. "You know why the OSS has sent me and you know what I'm lookin' for."

"Actually, I don't know what it is you precisely need," Kemp was equally frank and to the point. "But if the Office of Strategic Services wants it then they'll get it."

"I 'aint lookin' for men who are a dime a dozen, Kemp. I'm lookin' for a needle in a haystack." Raine leaned forward to make certain that every word he spoke in his thick Tennessee drawl would be clear in Kemp's ears. "And I think my needle may be in your haystack."

"The best of the best for your mission, Lieutenant?"

"Nothing else will do, Colonel."

A-A-A

Mandelbread - A twice-baked cookie similar to biscotti

Author's notes: Chaim Weizmann was a real-life chemist who emigrated from Russia to England and later on America, donating his scientific research to the efforts of both World Wars.

Dr. Seuss, better known as Theodore Seuss Geisel, wrote hundreds of political cartoons for PM magazine years before he started publishing children's books. You can find out more in the book "Dr. Seuss Goes to War" by Richard H. Minear.


	4. Chapter 4

Donny got his first look at Aldo Raine in the mess hall. The room was jam-packed with hungry soldiers so Donny had to raise his head up and squint to see the lieutenant sitting at the head table along with Colonel Kemp and the Feds. He was burning with curiosity to know what they were talking about but couldn't hear a word over the blaring conversations that crowded the room.

Hunched over their trays of stewed meat and carrots, Donny, Utivich, and Tien exchanged words.

"He sure doesn't look like an Indian," Tien admitted to Donny. "But that's one helluva knife he carries around. Are the rumors about him true?"

"Sure they're true," Donny said. "Maybe or maybe not he's got some Indian blood in him but what I do know is that one of the most notorious outlaws in the Smokey Mountains is now one of the best guerrilla tacticians in the country. No wonder he had to come down here with those Feds. Reed will blow a fuse when he finds out."

"How'd that Raine man survive a hanging?" Utivich wanted to know.

"Double-hanging," Donny corrected him. He popped his fork into his mouth. "I dunno the details. But there was a big bounty on the head of the 'Apache Indian' back in the late '20's until law-enforcement realized they were better off workin' with the guy instead of trying to gun him down."

"How do you know all this?" Adam demanded.

"Tien, I didn't marry a woman for her brains but it sure does help," Donny said as he helped himself to more stewed carrots.

Donny seldom spoke about Ruth and had become cautious about bringing her name up around his peers. He didn't even carry a picture of her around. It was a watchful reminder of that fateful day in Whitmore's office and he sure didn't want the likes of Reed knowing he had a doting little wife back home.

But everyone who liked Sergeant Donowitz (meaning most of the division) knew he must be a good husband. Why else would his wife send him birthday cookies and weekly letters from everyone he knew in Boston?

A-A-A

_Later that night:_

Donny had given his boots a good shine and run a comb through his damp hair before heading over to Colonel Kemp's office. Thank goodness he had taken pains to keep at least one uniform in flawless condition (a suggestion from one of Ruth's letters) for good first impressions. His hair had gotten a bit longer and unkempt but there wasn't time to cut it now so he just smoothed it back as best as he could with his fingers. Notwithstanding the hair, Donny made a striking figure of a soldier in his crisp khaki pants and newly-cleaned boots when he left the barracks that night.

He had been specially requested to come alone after the supper hour but Donny assured Adam and Utivich that he'd tell them everything that happened when he got back. Not that Donny was anxious, of course. But he felt the tingle of excitement in the back of his head predicting that something important was going on in that office and whatever it was, it had something crucial to do with Donny.

He rapped twice on the door. "Come in," Kemp's voice called out.

Donny opened the door and walked inside the office just as Kemp had gotten up from behind his desk. One of the Feds was there standing near the fireplace while the Apache Indian had just started folding up a newspaper he had been reading.

Donny's back straightened up stiff as an arrow and he snapped off a sharp salute to Kemp. "Sergeant Donowitz reporting for duty, Colonel."

"At ease, sergeant."

Donny remained standing but let his legs move an inch apart and clasped his hands behind his thighs while looking attentively at his superior officer. He waited while Kemp walked over and closed the door before pulling down the shades. _It's gotta be something big going down_, he thought.

Kemp motioned to the Fed in the dark-blue suit and the uniformed officer next to him. "Sergeant Donowitz, this is Mr. Jackson Williams and this is Lieutenant Aldo Raine. They're with the Office of Strategic Services in Washington D.C."

Williams gave Donny a firm handshake but Raine's grip was even stronger and Donny suspected there were iron bars inside him where most people had bones. He had a big calloused hand with a deep nick in his right thumb but nothing compared to that think pink scar that ran around Raine's neck. Donny was impressed.

"So you're Sergeant Donowitz," he said at last, looking Donny up and down carefully. "I heard the boys call you the 'Bat-Man' around here."

"Yes sir, they do."

Raine was interested. "Mind tellin' me why, son?"

"I'm a good baseball player, sir."

"How good?"

"The best," Donny answered confidentially.

"You love it?"

"I love it."

"Anything else you do well?"

Raine watched the younger man's head nod to Kemp. "Whatever the colonel says to do, I do. And I'll do it better'n anyone else." Judging by his tone of voice and strong eye-contact, Raine knew that this was a man who would keep his word. He liked that. And he had a hunch that he was going to like this sergeant.

"Your aptitude scores are fine," Jackson Williams spoke up. He flipped through Donny's file. "Although your previous career lacked some solid backing. Would you mind shedding some light on this?"

A flicker of frustration swept across Donny's face from the Fed's question but he kept his temper in check. "What d'you mean?"

"There's a report here claiming that you physically assaulted your former boss in his house after you were dismissed. And you and your accomplices stole $300 dollars from his private funds." Williams looked up at Donny coldly. "Do you deny this accusation, Sergeant Donowitz?"

_Damn you Whitmore_, Donny fumed. He had already thought of 17 different ways to maim the jerk but then Donny saw Raine eying him. He swiftly dared to go full steam ahead with his version of the story.

"Yes I deny it, Mr. Williams. And Colonel Kemp," Donny turned to address his superior office. "I swear to God that I'm telling the truth when I say I found Whitmore harassing my wife. When I pried that jerk off of her, that's when Whitmore fired me."

"Your wife?" Williams paused.

"Yes, my wife." Donny's ear reddened with aggravation but he worked hard to keep the inner beast on a tight leash. There was a time and place for everything but now was _not_ the time for Donny to make an idiot of himself. The lieutenant watched attentively to see how Sergeant Donowitz would play his cards out.

Donny went on. "If Whitmore wanted to settle this one-on-one then that's fine with me. Instead he acted like a chicken and sent out his goonies to break our local synagogue windows. That's a public holy place, sir. A house of worship in the Boston community. You wouldn't just stand by and let a church get ransacked, would you sir?"

"No, I reckon Jackson Williams wouldn't allow it," Raine finally intervened. He glanced sharply at the Fed. "Would you, Williams?"

The Fed began to back down. "No, I certainly wouldn't let it happen to a house of worship," he said in a tone that was much more civil than before.

"There you have it, sir. Steve Whitmore stood up to his old man and that's clear evidence; same as the 50 men who knew my ex-boss had a bad reputation. A lot of people saw the synagogue being damaged too," Donny lifted his head up in triumph. "Is there anything else, Mr. Williams?"

"No, no that's it. I'll let Raine take it from here." The Fed admitted defeat by collapsing into a chair and wiping his brow with his handkerchief.

Raine stepped forward. "What do you know about the OSS, son?"

"It's a wartime intelligence agency," Donny answered promptly.

"Right. The government's network of code-breaking, infiltration, and any strategic information against the Axis and their henchmen. Now years ago when people had to be polite and honorable there was a motto that '_gentlemen don't read other's mail'_. Fighting the enemy had to do with being a decent human being and following a code of conduct."

"Well, sergeant," Raine rolled his neck around leisurely. "That is one-hundred percent bullshit. War is hell and if you wanna survive you will cross every line drawn on the map to get to victory."

Those few swear words that broke into the conversation were a welcome sign to Donny who was hanging on Raine's message. But then the lieutenant's tone became somber.

"Everyone's learning the hard way these days especially since Hitler decided to use London for target practice and _Kristallnacht_ broke out." Raine looked at Donny. "I read the papers too, sergeant. Your synagogue wasn't the only one that got smashed up." He watched Donny's eyes flicker like glowing embers at his words but kept quiet.

Raine went on. "So when the Feds gave me the green light to contribute to the war effort I got to work on it lightning-fast. I am putting together a team of soldiers to be working directly under my command when we are stationed in Nazi-occupied France. Our mission is simple: to wreck havoc on the Nazi regime. To scare and terrify and wear down those Krauts until they will finally break at our hands and weep for mercy."

Nearly every other soldier who got this request from Raine would launch an avalanche of questions at him: how'd they kill Nazis, when they'd do it, who else would be supporting them, and endless obstacles to prevent getting their hands from finally dirty. Some went green in the face if he even mentioned scalping and they'd stammer, "Are you sure you want to do that?" as if Raine was just going to change his mind about cutting the skin off dead soldiers.

Not Donny Donowitz. He knew Raine meant business and he meant it loud and clear.

"I can do that," he nodded promptly. No questions asked, no further queries.

"And if I give you a direct order—no matter how crazy or shitless scary it sounds—would you do it, sergeant?"

"Yes, sir."

"Why?"

"Because if you're going to be killing Nazis then is our war as much as anyone's," Donny boldly sated. "So we've gotta get our share of ass-kicking in and first dibs on the German army."

Colonel Kemp didn't admonish Donny for easing up a bit. Instead he opened up a side door and a newcomer walked in. The stubble on his chin left a gray haze to his complexion but despite the hawkish nose and granite-like features, there was something intelligent about his face that impressed Donny.

"Sergeant Donowitz, meet Corporal Wilhelm Wicki," Kemp introduced Wicki to Donny. They saluted each other respectfully. "Corporal Wicki left Austria in 1938 and now he's volunteered to accompany Lieutenant Raine back to Europe as a translator."

"Which languages do you speak?" Donny asked.

"I am fluent in German, French, Hungarian, and some Polish." Wicki informed Donny in a deep gravelly voice. "Yiddish too but the Germans won't like that," he added with a dark smirk.

"No, they sure won't," Raine said. He removed a snuff box from his pocket and took a pinch to his nose. "Sergeant Donowitz, I've got a few cabins back up in the Smokey Mountains and I wanna take you and Wicki out there to test those army balls of yours out before you sign yourself onto this bandwagon of bushwhacking hell raisers. But before I do, anyone else that comes to mind who you'd think would be good to bring along?"

Donny related over everything he knew about the genius known as Private Smithson Utivich. Raine agreed that Utivich had a terrible name but his knack with spontaneous combustion and talent for making bombs would come in handy.

"That's good to know. Colonel Kemp, you mind fetchin' Private Utivich out here? I wanna go over this one more time before I break everyone's legs in."

Kemp nodded and made a note on his clipboard for Jackson Williams to give to Utivich. "Gentlemen, I just want you all to know that this is strictly confidential information," he cautioned them. "You are being asked to do work that is radical and extreme but absolutely crucial to this war. You cannot tell anyone else about your specific missions or future destinations behind enemy lines. No details, just a light sketch about 'arms in combat'. Do I make myself clear?" Kemp asked his men.

"Yes sir," Wicki and Donny answered at once.

"While you're at it Kemp, don't mind if I make myself clear as well. I ain't selling lollipops." Raine put his hands on his hips and addressed Wicki and Donny.

"So a word of caution, fellas. Whatever training I put you through before our mission is gonna be painful, even for grown men like yourselves. I see one tear in your eye, one inch of slacking off, and home you go. This mission 'aint for sissies. You will give me everything you've got and when you feel ready to drop dead, you will give me more."

Wicki and Donny didn't even flinch, which made Raine grin. "I've got a friend over in Lexington who thought he'd give me a piece of sound advice before I started building up this personal team of Bastards. He said to me, '_If you wanna ride in the Kentucky Derby then you don't leave your prize stallion in the stable'_."

"Well, that's awful nice but if you think I'm teaching you how to ride in a derby then go on and buy the Brooklyn Bridge while you're at it. Just don't come back to me asking how you're going to scalp a dead Nazi with a steel bridge."

A-A-A

_FOUR MONTHS LATER:_

"You need a bath and two showers."

That was the first sentence that came out of his mother's mouth after she had pulled Donny into a tight hug and kissed him on both cheeks when he stepped off the train in downtown Boston. Utivich was there as well, quite eager to get a break after Aldo Raine's grueling training and looking forward to a traditional Passover _seder_. Donny and Utivich were the dirtiest passengers on the train and had lugged duffel bags that made everyone else's noses wrinkle from the odor.

"Tsk, where did you live in this army camp? The swamp?" Mrs. Donowitz pulled at the fabric of his soiled shirt with disgust. He could only manage a sheepish grin. _If only you knew, Ma_.

Raine had them sleeping in caves, under trees, beneath the stars, and in muddy trenches for weeks to brace themselves for the fight ahead. They had been shot at, crawled on their bellies, and worked in the dark for endless freezing nights while getting bruised and banged along the way. Every single miserable option of facing a storm trooper with a pistol or an entire squad of SS officers was analyzed and they were taught how to disarm the enemy while bringing down as much chaos as possible.

It had been an amazing experience but Donny was relieved to get back to his parent's little apartment, fill up the old-fashioned porcelain tub with hot water, and letting his sore limbs soak in it for a good hour or two. That is exactly what he did after getting through the front door and giving his father a handshake and a receiving a peck on the cheek from Ruth.

Now he lay in the tub watching the steam rise from the water while sweat beads dripped down his temples from the intense heat. The soapy water seared into the flesh wounds he had acquired over the last few intense months but he welcomed it, embracing the reality of knowing he was still alive and could keep on kicking long enough to carry out his mission.

There was a sharp tap at the door and Ruth slipped into bathroom, her arms full of fluffy white towels. Her smile to Donny was wiped off her face when she saw the various bruises and cuts all over his hulking body. "What on _earth_ did they do to you?" Ruth demanded, dropping the towels fretfully. "You look terrible!"

"Relax sweetheart," Donny grunted. "It's all part of the job."

"What's part of the job? Being jabbed all over like a pin-cushion?" Ruth crooked a finger at him. "You get out of that tub right now and let me put some iodine on those bruises before you get infected."

"C'mon, babe. Give a soldier his due break."

Ruth refused to be put off and beat her hand against the rim of the tub to get his attention. . "Now, Sergeant Donowitz! Hup two, three, four!"

Instead of complying, Donny grabbed her by the wrist and gave it a sharp playful tug. Ruth lost her balance and with a shriek of surprise, she toppled into the bathtub with him.

_KER-SPLASH!_

Water slopped out of the tub and splashed onto the tiled floor noisily. Ruth sputtered and found herself splayed out on top of her naked husband, her wet wool sweater and skirt clinging to her body. She would've released a smart-aleck word back at him had there not been a knock at the door.

"Donny? Ruth?" The doting voice of Donny's mother came through the door. "Is everything all right? I thought I heard something."

"Mmmmph!" Donny had quickly put a dripping hand over Ruth's mouth to shush her up while her eyes grew white and big with alarm.

"It's all right Ma," he hollered loud enough to be heard through the wooden barrier. "Ruth's helping me with some bandages, that's all."

"Well, come out of there when you're dry and ready. Your father wants to give you a haircut."

Donny waited until the footsteps died off into the distance and then released his control on Ruth's lips. He looked up and down at the soaking woman who was struggling to claw her way off his chest and out of the tub.

"You! Y-you!" Ruth sputtered to find the right words that died out when Donny's eyes teased merrily at her.

"Looks like you need to dry off too," he tutted with amusement.

A-A-A

Feeling refreshed after his bath and now dressed in clean clothes, Donny made his way to the kitchen. Ruth had gotten even with him for the bathtub joke and after drying him off she had rubbed Donny's body down with cotton balls dipped in alcohol. It stung like hell but she made it worthwhile by giving Donny a good fifteen-minute shoulder massage afterward.

His father had surprisingly closed the barbershop early for once in lieu of Passover preparations and told all of his customers weeks in advance that they wouldn't get their haircuts at five o'clock this week. He still had sufficent time to turn the kitchen into a quick haircut service stop for the boys. Utivich was already sitting in an old chair with a tablecloth draped around his shoulders while Donny's father did the finishing touches. There were already a lot of wet little dark snips of hair gathering on the ground waiting to be swept away with a broom.

"Hold still, Smithson. I have my own trigger finger when it comes to these scissors," Sy Donowitz chuckled. He flicked his wet comb through Utivich's new bangs, dusted his shoulders off with a small brush, and swept the tablecloth away. "Voila! You look good as new. Now sit down at that table and have some kasha with your soup."

He wasn't used to being treated with frank hospitality but Utivich slid into a seat at the kitchen table. Donny's mother gave him a bowl of thick creamy potato soup topped with brown-grained kasha while Ruth squeezed lemon into a cup of black tea. The smell and sights of home-cooked food after weeks of surviving on K-Army rations was doing wonders to Utivich's stomach and he began shoveling his spoon into his mouth like a machine.

"Donny, you think your friend here will have enough room for the _seder _tonight?" his mother asked with hint of amusement when he walked through the door.

He just laughed and made himself comfortable in the chair while his father used an old squirt bottle to spray a fine mist of water over Donny's hair. "Ugh, you're lucky you didn't get bugs in here," his father chided him as he raked a comb through the heavy knots and clumps on Donny's scalp. "Did you boys sleep in the bushes?"

"Somethin' like that," Utivich put in as he swallowed down his kasha with a mouthful of tea. As soon as he had popped the last of his soup into his mouth, Donny's mother picked up his bowl and went to the stove to refill it.

He began to protest. "Thank you ma'am but I'm really full enough as it is-"

Utivich would be quick to learn how things ran in the Donowitz household when she firmly set the newly-filled bowl down before him.

"Smithson, you may be a private in the army but in this house, you are a guest," Mrs. Donowitz announced in her no-nonsense voice. "And the guest _always_ eats seconds!"

A-A-A

Aldo Raine may have been a grueling instructor but he was not sadistic to his officers. Donny and Utivich were allowed to get off the Smokey Mountains so long as they came back on Raine's schedule. He had dismissed them with a fair nod of the head knowing it would probably be one of the last chances the boys saw their families for a very long time.

Passover was the highlight of the year in every Jewish household-especially the Donowitz family. The Birnbaums and their five children had been invited to the _seder _along with Rabbi Markus and his wife. Adding in Donny's parents, Utivich, Ruth, and himself would make it a lively table of company and a holiday that he was grateful to spend with family and close friends.

Donny and Utivich were kept busy for the rest of the day running back and forth to bring extra chairs from other apartments and haul them into the dining room. While Ruth and Mrs. Donowitz flitted around the kitchen examining mixing bowls and bubbling pots, Joseph Birnbaum arrived early to help polish the silver and set the table. Rabbi Markus and his wife arrived with a bouquet of flowers and several bottles of a fiery brewed California liquor for those who could stomach something stronger than the local sweet Concord wine sold at the corner drugstore.

At sundown, Donny watched the sun materialize into a blazing ball of fire and vanish out of sight from the dining room window. Mrs. Donowitz swept into the room wearing her fine blue silk dress and when everyone else had become quiet and still, she lit the candles to usher in the festival.

Once the candles were glowing with light and the prayers had been said, Mrs. Donowitz turned to her guests and smiled. "_Chag Sameach,_" she announced with open arms. "Happy holiday, everyone! Why Joseph, did you grow an inch since your last birthday?"

"An inch and a half," he beamed proudly. Just to be certain, Joseph climbed on a chair and stood almost as high as Donny. He and Utivich scrubbed up pretty well in their second-best clothes although his old gray suit was a bit too tight across the chest. Ruth had been right when she said Donny was bursting at the seams so he had to let his jacket be draped over a chair while she stood by his side.

Donny had to admit that Ruth looked pretty tonight in an apple-green jumper that softened her hazel eyes to jade-colored. Her thick brown hair had been tied back with a green ribbon and she wore the rhinestone brooch he had brought with him from Virginia pinned to the collar of her white embroidered blouse.

Sy Donowitz motioned for everyone to sit down at the table that sparkled from the rows of glass goblets and gleamed with newly-polished silverware. Utivich looked a bit edgy as he unfolded his napkin and put it into his lap.

"I don't know what I'm supposed to do," he whispered to Donny out of the corner of his mouth.

"Just go along with it. You'll pick up the slack," Donny assured him. He picked up a bottle of wine and filled Utivich's cup to the brim while everyone else filled each other's cups with wine or grape juice; a gesture of dependency and reliance on one another in times of need.

The _seder_ began with Joseph Birnbaum in all of his tooth-gaped beaming glory, standing on a chair and chanting the Four Questions in Hebrew. "_Mah Nishatnah HaLilah Hazeh_," his high-pitched voice rang out across the table. "Why is this night different than all other nights?"

He looked at Donny and waited for the appropriate comment to proceed further. "I don't know, Joseph," he said aloud even though he knew the answer. "Why _is_ this night different form all other nights?"

"On all other nights we eat bread or matzo. But tonight," Joseph pointed to a tray of crisp flat breads. "We eat only matzo."

The Birnbaums all clapped for their youngest son who beamed proudly and continued with the other questions, the riddles, and the secrets of the Passover story.

The night went on an epic journey of a timeless tale, the story of deliverance from slavery to freedom that was engraved in the mind of every Jewish person that ever lived and still sang out loud and clear until this very day. Everyone spilled drops of wine from their cups, broke the matzo, and dipped celery into salt water to remember the tears of slavery and the bitterness that their Hebrew ancestors suffered in Egypt. For Donny and Utivich, the experience had a compelling message and was more than just a little bit disturbing to their consciences. They had just taken an oath of loyalty to Aldo Raine—their new leader- no more than four months ago . If every other person at the table from little Joseph Birnbaum to the elderly Rabbi Markus knew what Donny and Utivich were going to do as the newly-formed team called the Bastards then they would be overwhelmed with shock. But Donny and Utivich were men of their word.

If Hitler would not let the Jews of Europe go forth in freedom then the Bastards would go after him and his fanatic army with the vengeance of the Ten Plagues and every other punishment thereafter.

The bittersweet feeling inside Utivich eventually dissolved into a pleasant one when they began the festive dinner that followed the _seder_. Utivich found out he still had plenty of room for golden chicken soup, potato knishes, stuffed cabbage, fruit compote, and countless other tempting dishes that Mrs. Donowitz brought out of the kitchen with a proud beaming smile. He and Donny ate until their stomachs were ready to burst and applauded the woman of the house for her cooking. "_Tres bien_," Donny said as he kissed his fingertips. "Ma, you're the best".

Ruth, ever the doting daughter-in-law, had taken on dessert and produced a confectionery masterpiece in the form of a giant nut cake topped with a creamy pink-and-white icing. Even Joseph, who insisted he wouldn't be able to eat another bite, clapped his hands with delight when Ruth brought the cake to the table on a huge china platter and polished off a second helping.

Donny was the one chosen to fill the cup in the middle of the table with more wine and open the door for Elijah the Prophet. As a child he had always wondered what would happen if a real human being was standing there on their doorstep instead of the strip of worn carpet leading from their apartment down to other people's homes. The old custom should have been repetitious at this point but it had become engraved in his mind as a testimony of faith. This year, Donny starred down that blank hallway and made a silent promise that he would do something to make sure that generations to come would always be able to open their doors without fear of the unexpected.

After several hours of eating, conversing, telling jokes and stories, Utivich was face-down on the table and completely immobilized from the heavy meal and four full cups of strong wine. Ruth had dozed off on the couch with Joseph's lap in her head. He kept hiccupping in his sleep and mumbling something about "Dorothy's 'n Kansas" incoherently.

Rabbi Markus watched Donny lift Joseph's head up and resettle it on a nearby cushion. Then he slid an arm under Ruth's shoulders, another arm under her knees, and lifted her up easily from the sofa. Donny carried Ruth into the spare bedroom in the back of the apartment and set her down gently on the wide soft bed so she wouldn't wake up. She murmured something thickly in her sleep but did not wake while he pulled the blankets over her body and tucked her in.

Donny returned to the dining room to find Rabbi Markus gesturing to the door. "A word outside, Donny?"

"Sure, why not?" He let out a huge bear-like yawn and stretched his hands over his head. A little night air would clear his head after swimming in all that wine. Donny picked up his jacket and followed Rabbi Markus out of the building. This part of Boston was quiet as it was nearly two in the morning while they walked the empty streets.

Finally Rabbi Markus broke the silence. "Are you going to be fighting overseas soon?" he asked Donny.

"Sure am," the young man nodded. The wine had loosened his tongue more than he anticipated although he knew to keep enough in order. "I've got me a fine good teacher and he knows everything about kicking the enemy in the can. As soon as we get the green-light we'll be heading over to Sicily and makin' our way into France."

"That sounds dangerous," Rabbi Markus said.

Donny glanced at him sideways. "Any more dangerous than walking right into a sea that splits into two halves?" He made a gesture of shooting a gun. "_Kap-pow_!"

Rabbi Markus shook his head. "I suppose not. But if you'll take an old man's words to heart then please don't forget your wife is also aware of the dangers ahead."

"Ruth? Aw, now don't you worry about that, Rabbi. I've got the sweetest little wife in the world. Ma and Pa'll take good care of my baby Ruth in case—"

"In case what, Donny? In case you don't come back?"

Rabbi Markus had stopped walking and was facing Donny in his tracks looking more somber than ever. Donny breathed in and out to make sure his brain was working properly. Whatever was making Rabbi Markus look so upset was beyond him but he was curious as hell to know what it was.

"Answer this question, Donny. Do your current plans include a safe trip home or are you going to take down as many Nazis as you can with your own life?"

Donny made a strange face, perhaps finally getting the alcohol out of his system. "The latter," he admitted at last. "A Donowitz always keeps his word, Rabbi. And I've sworn to gun down Hitler and his goons or die trying."

Those were the cold hard facts that Donny had finally placed before his mentor to take or leave. He was willing to make the sacrifice not just for the Jews, but for all the other decent people left in this world.

"I see." Rabbi Markus resumed walking again. "It is a good thing to know that all those years of Hebrew school have not gone wasted if you remember to keep your word. But before you can keep that promise, you have another oath that stands in the way of your mission."

"What're you talkin' about?"

"I'm talking about your marriage to Ruth."

"What's that got to do with me kickin' the Krauts' asses?"

Rabbi Markus reached for his glasses as if to give a reason to remove and polish them—but he kept his hand in midair. There was no point in beating around the bush right now so Rabbi Markus placed his own cold hard facts in front of the young man.

"Donny, you must divorce your wife."

A-A-A

The Jewish divorce document was called a _get*_ and dated back to biblical times when married men dissolved their wives of matrimonial ties before they went off to war. If they disappeared in action or their bodies were never found then the women wouldn't be trapped in marriage forever, wondering what happened to their spouses. They could remarry at will. But nobody wanted to think about the consequences of war when they got the message "missing in action". Everyone prayed for their loved ones to make a safe return home.

But Donny didn't expect to come back alive. His mission was a one-way trip into hell and he accepted that along with every consequence and every line he'd have to cross to get there. In the middle of the night and still loaded with wine and alcohol, he didn't have much patience for the details.

A happy get-together like a Passover _seder_ was fine but the _get _was considered an "ancient stupid ritual" to Donny. He dismissed Rabbi Markus, saying he didn't want Ruth mixed up in his army business.

"This is not some old-fashioned tradition or a so-called 'stupid ritual', Donny. This is a sacred Jewish law and its rules still apply today even in the 20th century!" Rabbi Markus had suddenly shouted in his face. That got Donny's attention at once. Not unlike Colonel Kemp, Rabbi Markus only raised his voice when he meant serious business.

"You must give Ruth a _get_ before you leave to Europe or else—"

"Or else what?" he snapped back.

"Marriage is more than a romp of fun. It is a sacred and loving connection between two people who have bound their lives and souls together. So if you have any respect for your wife then you will release Ruth of her duties to you."

Donny mumbled something about having to get some sleep and headed back, not even bidding Rabbi Markus a good night. The elderly man didn't take it personally.

He had enough common sense to give Donny benefit of the doubt and besides, he had known that young man since he was three years old and struggling his way through the Aleph-Bet letters in the back row of Hebrew school. Rabbi Markus knew that Donny Donowitz would never be a scholar or sit behind a desk. He was a fighter with an iron will, steel nerves, and mighty hands that could tear a person apart. When war had sprung up from the blood-soaked earth, Donny had jumped for duty. Let it never be said that he hadn't found his true calling or shirked from the tremendous task at hand.

"_Tikkun HaOlam_," Rabbi Markus murmured aloud to himself. "Good luck, Donny."

Donny knew he was being stubborn just for the sake of proving that something else in the universe was fucked up. He had made a commitment to his superior officer that he would deliver 100 Nazi scalps and so far, the slate was clean. But Rabbi Markus was right: his commitment to Ruth had come first. If Donny wanted to join the Bastards then he'd have to severe his ties from her forever.

Donny tried to imagine Ruth waking up to someone else in bed, fixing another man's breakfast, writing someone else letters and sitting up at night murmuring Psalms for him to come home safely. No, there wouldn't be anyone else—she had asked for him and him alone. She could hate him all she wanted but he knew they'd both have to bite the bullet and go ahead with this.

But before he settled the matter of the divorce there was another crucial obligation that hung in Donny's mind. It involved a baseball bat and every single person who could write their name on it.

At the beginning of the 21st century law-enforcement teams around the world pooled their resources together in an attempt to break down one of the most notorious criminal teams that had walked the earth in a century. They were known as the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad.

The D.V.A.S. had a high-ranking profile. Their leader's name was Bill but sometimes he was referred to as "Snake Charmer" while all of his followers took the names of deadly snakes: coppermouth, black mamba, etc. If the D.V.A.S. wanted someone dead then that person never got above six feet ground again. They got paid in big sums of cash. They drove fast cars and mastered martial arts. Bill had a thing for Hattori Hanzo swords which were considered some of the best combat weapons in the Far East if not the entire world.

But one thing that Bill had never gotten his hands on—or his followers were able to give him—was a mythical weapon known as "the Million Dollar Club". All they knew was that the club belonged to a World War II veteran and was rumored to have magical properties. No surprise that even Bill admitted on several occasions that he'd do anything to possess that club.

Everyone was wrong on two agendas. One, it wasn't a club. It was a baseball bat; a 1933 Louisville Slugger to be precise.

Two, it had no magical powers. The owner just had a good batting arm.

And in the end it didn't matter because after the D.V.A.S. tried and failed to annihilate one of their own members, Black Mamba woke out of a four-year-coma and killed every single one of them. Even Bill.

To this day the whereabouts of the Million Dollar Baseball Bat remain a mystery.

A-A-A

Author's notes:

_Kristallnacht_ was "Night of the broken glass" in 1938 where thousands of Jewish stores in Germany and Austria were ransacked and synagogues were burnt to the ground.

_Kasha_ – A buckwheat grain used in Eastern European dishes.

_Chag Sameach_ – "Happy Holiday" in Hebrew.

The Passover _Seder_ is a ritual feast and a hands-on experience commemorating deliverance from Egypt with special foods, four questions asked by the youngest person at the table (usually a child) and four cups of wine to drink.

*The complications of a _get_ (Jewish divorce contract) are still applicable today though not usually regarding a spouse going off to war. While I have attempted to find specific answers confirming Donny's need to give a _get_, it wasn't clear that a divorce would be mandatory. Jewish men aren't obligated to divorce their wives before going into combat. I made the assumption based on the odds that Donny would have to burn all his bridges and release Ruth of the "missing in action" problem.

Aldo's comment about "The Kentucky Derby" is credited to JJ Abrams script and all Trekkies out there. And yes, the D.V.A.S. of "Kill Bill" wanted the bat of Donny Donowitz. Who wouldn't?


	5. Chapter 5

Donny had three simple reasons why he wanted to join the Bastards with a signed baseball bat:

One: It felt patriotic.

Two: It was easier than _schlepping_ around a bunch of letters from home.

Three: The Nazis wouldn't know what hit them.

"Never do anything half-assed," Raine had ordered Donny on day three of Camp Apache. "If we're gonna give these goons the element of surprise then they'd better be shocked when you jump outta some dark alleyway swinging somethin' they aint' gonna find in their local Nazi surplus store."

Given to Donny as a Hanukkah present when he was 23, the Louisville Slugger was one of his most prized possessions and he couldn't think of a more fitting weapon to use for their vendetta mission. Getting everyone to sign it wouldn't be too much of a problem but if Mrs. Birnbaum found out from her little Joseph that Donny was teaching him to crack skulls then she wouldn't let her son out of the house again.

Donny decided to skip the head-smashing details and asked Joseph Birnbaum to sign his bat simply for good luck. The red-headed kid went wild with excitement at the offer. "I get to go first! I get to sign your baseball bat first!" Joseph shouted while jumping up and down gleefully.

Donny didn't want to burst his bubble. "Sorry kiddo but Nathan Strauss already put his initials on my bat this morning. He was in a big hurry and had to catch his bus to Baltimore and you can't keep the Navy waiting. You understand, Joey?"

Joseph understood in a heartbeat. "Oh, okay fine. But I'm going to be the first one to put his FULL name on the bat," he announced. Joseph was one of those sweet but determined kids who knew that every child has his or her crucial chance to alter the world as we know it. Initiating the autographing of the sergeant's baseball bat was Joseph's shining moment in history.

Donny had no problem with that and handed Joseph a ball point pen. Joseph eagerly plunked him down in an empty barbershop chair and began to spell out his name in large block letters. From another spare chair, Utivich was scribbling down diagrams in a small notebook he carried around. In a third chair Wicki sat stiffly as a statue with a towel around his shoulders.

Donny insisted on covering for his father in the barbershop during his last few days in Boston. He found it relaxing and wanted to catch up with old customers and friends who walked through the door. Today was a quiet one for clients but Wicki's train to Connecticut (Aldo had sent him north for some last-minute instructions) had passed through Boston and now the Austrian soldier found himself sitting in a barber chair receiving his free Donowitz shave and haircut whether he liked it or not. Wicki had no qualms when Donny insisted so he sat unwaveringly still in the chair while Donny's scissors snipped quickly at his hair.

"B-I-R-N-B-A-U-M," Joseph finally finished up writing his name and capped the pen with great satisfaction. He glanced at Utivich who was still doing his homework. "Whatcha writing in there, Smithson?" he asked.

"I'm memorizing engine designs. If we're at war and something breaks down then we'll have to fix it in a hurry," Utivich explained.

"Wow. Are you guys gonna steal a German tank?" Joseph asked gleefully.

"That depends on where we would find a German tank," Wicki informed him. He was one of the few people who could carry on a conversation without turning his head in the chair, much to Donny's satisfaction. The last thing he wanted to do was cut off the corporal's ear.

"If we would go all the way to Germany to get a tank then we would have a hard time getting it out past the Nazis. But if we found the tank in France then it would still be a problem of hiding it in the woods."

"Can't you just take it apart and stash it somewhere no one would find it? Like in an old warehouse?" Joseph suggested.

Wicki's laugh came out like a low tiger growl. "Maybe you and your ideas should enlist too."

Joseph pouted. "I can't, I'm only seven years old. Say Mr. Wicki, what'd you do in Austria before they kicked you out?"

"I was a musician," Wicki informed him.

Donny stopped cutting his hair for a moment when he heard this. "Really, Wicki? You never told us you did music."

"My sister and I performed at the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra every month. She played the cello. I played the violin." A touch of pride had softened Wicki's features when he spoke. Donny, Joseph, and Utivich were very impressed.

"Where you any good?" Utivich asked.

"We were the best," Wicki announced firmly. "Aristocrats and millionaires came from all over Europe to hear us perform. Even a Swedish king arrived for our Christmas gala event."

"Well, what happened?"

Wicki's cheeks and chin hardened at once. "The Germans came in and put up rules that Jews couldn't perform in public or take the jobs they wanted. When Monika arrived at the opera house one day they kicked her down the stairs and broke her cello. It was a very old and expensive heirloom, worth at least a thousand American dollars."

"Ooooooh." Little Joseph's expression fell. "I'm sorry about your sister's cello, Mr. Wicki."

"It was a small price to pay for saving our necks. Monika and I managed to get visas and leave the country before 1939. She's in London now and has a job as a cipher clerk."

Joseph was still full of questions. "And you're going back there? Why?"

Donny noticed Wicki's thick fingers curl and flex tensely in his lap. "Because I'm not going to 'sit around on my _tuchus'_ as some people put it, and wait for the same thing to happen anywhere else," he said at last.

"Maybe after the war your sister can come here and together you can perform at the New York Opera," Joseph suggested hopefully. "They play on the radio all the time and they're very good."

"Hmmmm," was all Wicki said. Nobody wanted to ask what happened to the rest of his family and Donny had a strong feeling that he already knew the answer. He decided to change the subject.

"Say Joseph, tell Wicki about our pal Nathan Straus."

"What about him?"

"The story about Nathan Straus Sr. and the boat. You tell it pretty well."

"Okay!" Joseph straightened up in his chair so Wicki could hear him loud and clear. "See, Donny's got this good friend named Nathan Gideon Straus and his ancestor was the first Nathan Straus who emigrated to America and had a helluva life." Joseph cleared his throat and began his story.

"Once upon a time, about fifty years ago, Nathan Straus and his brother Isidor went to New York City and started a business called Macys. It's a huge department store with wooden escalators. You can buy all kinds of amazing things like crystal chanticleers and silver flasks inside. The Strauss brothers got pretty rich running Macys so they started buying other business, going to parties, buying cars and fine clothes, and doing whatever it is rich people do. Well, after a while Mr. Nathan Straus decided that all his money could be better off helping other people.

"He decided to become a fin...phili...oh Smithson," Joseph groaned. "I forgot the word."

"Philanthropist," Utivich told him.

"Right! He decided to become a philanthropist, which is someone who donates a lot of their money to charities. Nathan Straus started donating his money to libraries, poor people, giving out jobs, and making sure kids could drink milk without getting sick."

One of Wicki's thick eyebrows arched up slightly. "Milk?"

"He means pasteurization," Utivich interrupted to clarify Joseph's words. "Tuberculosis was the main cause of childrens' death at the turn of the century. Nathan Straus founded a laboratory to sterilize mass-produced milk so it would kill the bacteria."

"I'm telling the story here!" Joseph insisted. "So yeah, Nathan Straus helped build this science laboratory and kids around the country finally got clean safe milk to make them grow up big and strong. Nathan Straus kept traveling and giving money and helping people everywhere and gosh, he was a busy man!"

"One day in 1912 Isidor Straus and his wife Ida were in Europe and planning to travel back to New York City on a gigantic fancy ocean liner. Isidor wanted his brother Nathan to come too because this was the ship's maiden voyage and the Straus' had first class tickets. That meant they'd sleep in fancy rooms, eat rich foods, and be treated like kings on that boat. But Nathan said he couldn't come. He was in the Middle East helping farmers to grow crops and he said he had too much work to do. So Isidor and Ida left without him and when Nathan realized he could've gotten on that boat, it sailed on without him."

"Poor Nathan Straus," Wicki said aloud. "He missed traveling like a king."

"You'd think so but then _do you know what happened_!" Joseph's eyes were big as dinner plates when he got to the climax. "That boat hit an iceberg and sank into the sea. Isidor and Ida Straus died on it. People said they could've gotten into a lifeboat but they gave up their seats for other passengers."

"So Nathan Straus missed his ticket on the Titanic," Wicki mused aloud. "And therefore avoided a nautical disaster."

"I'm sorry for Isidor and Ida," Utivich put in with a sympathetic word.

Joseph's head bobbed up and down. "You gotta feel awful bad for the Straus family after that but Nathan Straus lived a long time and he and his wife worked hard helpin' people out. One of his grand-kids is Donny's friend Nathan Gideon Straus and he's going into the navy."

Wicki's dark eyes glanced at Joseph. "Is there a moral to this story?"

"Yes. The moral is that it pays to be a philanthropist," Joseph announced triumphantly.

"And sometimes it's all right to miss a boat," Utivich added.

"And never run a crappy hunk of tin into an iceberg," Donny concluded.

A-A-A-A

Ruth tried to take the news about the divorce better than Donny but it still left a bitter scar on her heart. She had been meticulous when it came to Jewish rituals and law, always keeping her kitchen in line with the rules of kosher and lighting the candles on Sabbath eve. Why should this law be any different if Rabbi Markus said it was still necessary in 1940's Boston?

Because it involved getting someone's heart metaphorically ripped out, that's why.

But that's not what set her off. When he brought out the baseball bat three days later covered in signatures and autographs, Donny didn't expect Ruth's cheeks to burn crimson or her brow to wrinkle up with rage. Nor did he predict how angry she'd get over the purpose behind taking a piece of iconic America to Nazi-occupied France. They seemed to have reversed roles at that moment when Donny was proud of his accomplishment while Ruth began fuming in her husband's face.

"Are you insane?" she snapped when she saw the bat decorated with pen marks. "You're going to beat their brains in with _that_ thing? Donny, they'll shoot you first before you get a foot through the door!"

"Calm down, sweetheart," Donny assured her. "I didn't say I wasn't taking a machine gun along with me to play things safe. But this Slugger is saving the best for last so I'm only gonna beat the shit out of them when they don't cooperate with us."

"So those monsters don't do what you say then you'll take a stick to their heads?"

He took a swallow of soda from a bottle that lay on the table. "Pretty much. Yup."

Ruth was unimpressed. "Nobody's going to take you seriously, Donny."

"Actually, they will." He waved a finger at her. "'Cuz my new boss has a way with people."

"Aldo Raine is _your_ commanding officer?" Ruth sputtered in disbelief. "You're pulling my leg, Donny. The Apache is just an urban legend."

Donny set the soda bottle back down on the table. "If that's true then who the hell'd you think I was taking orders from, sweetheart? A penguin? I sure didn't get these scratches by falling down the stairs a hundred times."

Ruth jumped up from her seat and pressed a hand to her forehead. "God, Donny! What's the matter with you? Have you completely lost your senses?"

Donny tried to shush her calm. "Baby, you just need to-"

"I thought you were enlisting and fighting to protect us from the Nazis but it's all a game to you, isn't it?" Ruth shouted at him. "It's nothing but one big sick joke! You just want to be an army hero, don't you? I'll bet you do and that's _exactly_ why you need your precious baseball bat to have some fun while you'll be over there stepping over dead bodies and singing Cole Porter all the way and your crackpot team yells hooray for Donny Donowitz!"

She continued to vent, unaware of the dark cloud that had quickly covered Donny's face. He had slowly risen from his seat as well and remained tense like a wolf hiding in the shadows.

Ruth swiped a hand through the air dramatically. "I might as well try sewing you a cape and mask so you can be the goddam Bat-Man! You're not doing this because it's right, are you? No! It's not about the synagogue or the Jews anymore. You just want some shiny medals for—"

Donny had lunged for Ruth in a heartbeat. He slammed her up hard against the wall, causing the window panes to quiver and the walls to shake unsteadily. He grabbed her by the wrists and jammed them into his chest, his fingers curled so tightly that he could feel her pulse beating madly underneath his skin.

Ruth's struggle to break freed died away when she looked into her husband's face and saw his eyes had hardened into beads of black ice, chilling and relentless. His mouth was straight and hard as iron, his jaw clenched with brutal fury.

Donny kept his relentless grip on Ruth while he spoke in a low voice that was ominous and threatening.

"I'm doing this because ever since I saw Whitmore trying to fuck you I knew I'd tear this world apart to stop people like him," his tone rumbled threateningly.

"I'm doing this because every Nazi who dies at my hands means one less monster trying to get over here and hurt people like you and my parents...and Nathan Straus and little Joseph and Rabbi Markus and good ol' Steve and every other decent person in this world who deserves to walk and live freely."

Donny closed his lips and stepped back a single inch away from Ruth. She had become pale and frazzled from his words. He watched her take a long deep breath as her eyes misted over but nothing came forth from her lids. Ruth merely swallowed and blinked back her tears as a sign of surrender.

Every single thing he had uttered was true and what's more, it was right. They both knew he had to do this because men like Donny were hard to come by and they couldn't wait forever for knights in shining armor to show up and fight the battles for them.

But Ruth couldn't just let him walk out the door and march towards death. As his wife she wouldn't forgive herself for letting him go without a fight.

So when Donny asked her again to sign his baseball bat for old time's sake, she shook her head sadly. "I won't sign it until you give me the _get_."

"I'll do the papers at the end of the month when my division finishes training," he promised her. "Just sign my bat first."

Ruth shook her head again in quiet defiance.

Donny sighed reluctantly. "Babe, I can't go overseas without—"

"I know," Ruth said. "That puts us in a catch-22, doesn't it?"

She picked up her purse and walked out the door.

A-A-A

_One month later at the 29th Division in Virginia:_

"Adam! Adam!" everyone chanted with delight. Listening to the sound of his fellow officers and friends, Corporal Tien finally climbed up onto the makeshift stage and began pounding at the old piano. Some of the keys needed to be tuned but it was all right for an end-of-the-session party and the steady lively music was adequate for the soldiers.

Adam certainly had a reason or two to celebrate. Captain Reed's obnoxiousness and bigotry finally caught up with him ever since Reed dumped a pile of his dirty shirts on Adam's bunk bed and ordered him to "send 'em to the family laundromat on the double". Adam didn't even bother to tell Reed that his family ran a fine antiques shop, not a washing machine service, because Colonel Kemp heard everything in the doorway.

Kemp delivered a cutting speech that ranked up there with the President's radio broadcast and ended with, "Your narrow-mindedness goes against everything that we are fighting to protect against the Axis and I will not tolerate it anymore, Reed. This is your _permanent _dismissal from the regiment!"

Reed sputtered and coughed but he was already drunk as a skunk and in so far over his head that he stumbled out of the door and into the woods where he got his leg stuck in a bear trap. His merciful howling and cries of pain were quickly stopped when Kemp sent a scouting group to go bring the wounded Reed back. "He had no sense to go wandering off on that side of the woods," Kemp shook his head with disappointment. Reed's injury would take at least two months to heal anyway so he was packed up and sent back home for good.

Kemp made a full speech in front of the troop and added a bulletin of conduct and behavior for everyone to read outside the staff office. Any offensive comment relating to someone's heritage, race, or religion would result in a severe infraction under Kemp's rule.

"Consider Reed's fate a warning," he cautioned his men before morning exercises. "Anyone who continues in a similar manner is a disgrace to his country and has desecrated the uniform of a United States soldier. You will leave your bigotry in the barracks or leave this division stripped of your rank."

Adam had expected a "yes sir!" chanted in perfect unison to follow this order. Instead Kemp received a standing ovation of applause that would've lasted a quarter of an hour had he not said his traditional, "That'll do" and ordered them to go about their daily schedule.

Much later in his life when Kemp had became a decorated veteran and was retired from the service, youngsters and historians would gather around the old man's chair and listen to the story of his military career. They'd applaud him for his actions that were two decades ahead of the Civil Rights movement but he would only shake his head and decline any recognition for his actions.

"I did what needed to be done," Kemp would insist. "That's a soldier's duty until the very end".

A-A-A

Colonel Kemp had a lot on his mind but even he had to confess that the music was a pleasant distraction for ten minutes. He even smiled a bit to see his best tactician officer rattling away at the piano while Wicki was fiddling on a violin in time to the steady beat. Nurse Joanne Smith had gotten up on one of the tables and was tap-dancing to "Anything Goes" and trying (not-so-successfully) to get Private Utivich to dance with her. He kept attempting to slide back into the crowd until someone else pushed him back onto the table.

The colonel's eyes swept across the room in search of one of his other best officers and he was somewhat surprised not to see him there. Sergeant Donowitz liked to have a few good minutes in the spotlight and make everyone laugh with his jokes and film star impersonations delivered in a strong Boston accent. The lack of his presence wasn't noticed by the other officers so Kemp managed to slip out through the back entrance of the mess hall and make his way to the playing grounds.

Two harsh lamp lights beamed down on a solo figure that stood on the makeshift baseball diamond where the men played during recess hours. Donny was tossing rocks in the air and hitting them into the trees with his baseball bat. He stopped long enough to see Kemp leaning against the fence and looking at him curiously.

Kemp just waved the formalities aside when Donny saluted him.

"That's an interested piece of wood you've got," Kemp motioned to his bat. "Mind if I have a look?"

Donny handed his bat over to Kemp's open palm. He let it rotate slowly while reading off the various names: N.S. for Nathan Straus, the huge block letters of Joseph Birnbaum, Zev Halpern's tiny scrawl, the persistent Mr. Bloom's loopy writing, and even the perfect penmanship of Rabbi Benjamin Markus.

"This is quite a memento, Sergeant. Don't think I've ever seen anything like it before." He handed it back to Donny who merely tossed another stone in the air and cracked it with his bat. The lack of words on the sergeant's behalf said enough to Kemp that something was off but he tried a different tack.

"Your Austrian friend has an ear-and-a-half for music," Kemp gestured back to the mess hall. "That man could fiddle with the devil and come out on top."

"Wicki's too good for heaven's harps as well," Donny finally spoke up in a sharp tone. This was progress as far as Kemp was concerned so he persevered.

"Whatever is eating you sergeant, you'd better handle it now before I turn you and the other boys over to Lieutenant Raine for good." He slid his glasses back up his nose between his eyebrows. "I'll bet a shiny penny or two it's about a lady."

This comment got Donny to whirl on his commanding officer and for once he looked caught off guard. Kemp just nodded knowingly. "I've been married for 34 years and let me tell you sergeant that sometimes it doesn't get easier. But it does get better."

"You think?"

"I know, sergeant. You've listened well ever since you transferred over here so I'm hoping you'll take one more piece of advice." Kemp reached down and picked up a smooth gray stone from the ground. He lightly tossed it up and down in his hand while he spoke.

"A soldier in the line of duty has to make a lot of choices. One of the hardest choices of all is knowing which battles are worth fighting for and which ones are worth letting go of."

Kemp tossed the stone to Donny who instinctively caught it in his right palm. With a knowing nod and a salute, Kemp turned around and headed back towards the mess hall.

_Boston:_

The strong smell of lemon soap and steam from hot water was making Ruth dizzy. But they were too engrossed in the conversation and the lengthy task at hand for her to back down now. She quickly tucked a wisp of damp hair back into the handkerchief tied around her head and went back to scrubbing the laundry.

"I knew that Donny did right by marrying you, Ruth. But he's got his _tuchus_ stuck so far into this mess that you can't get him out now and you're going to have to face the facts," Mrs. Donowitz informed her.

"I can accept not being his wife anymore," Ruth said at last. "But I can't just let him walk into his grave."

Mrs. Donowitz submerged her chapped hands back into the vat of wet clothes. And while she scrubbed vigorously her words burned in Ruth's ears. "_Maideleh_, there are millions of Jews over there who don't even have graves. Did you read the papers this week? Do you know what they did to everyone in Kiev? And the ghettos?"

The answer came after a long uncomfortable five seconds. "Yes."

"If you think for one moment that I want my son to end up like them then you're one-million percent wrong!" Mrs. Donowitz smacked a wet shirt against the basin as if to beat the nonsense out of it. Then she whipped back on Ruth.

"Now you listen to me darling and you listen good." Mrs. Donowitz could be downright scary when she became this intense in the midst of a conversation. "God did not make my Donny strong for no reason. He's going to fight back. He's going to hurt those monsters. And he is going to win."

"How can you be sure of that?"

"He is a Donowitz. A Donowitz always finishes up the task at hand." She handed Ruth another wet shirt and they both began to wring it out over the basin. "That includes you too, Ruth. You're still a part of this family so I expect you to live up to your part of a bargain."

Ruth was quiet and contemplative for a few minutes while she helped Mrs. Donowitz hang the damp clothes on the rack to dry. She let the impact of her mother-in-law's message sink in and when it did, she made her choice.

"All right. I won't make things harder for you or your son any longer," Ruth admitted in defeat. She glanced at her mother-in-law and added wistfully, "I just hope we can still be friends even after I'm not a Donowitz anymore."

Mrs. Donowitz wiped her sweaty brow with a wrist. "You don't need to be a Donowitz to be considered family," she said at last.

A-A-A

_Two days later:_

"Telegram for you," Joanne reached into the wooden shelves behind her desk and handed Donny a slip of paper. He slit the envelope open with a fingernail and studied the writing quickly. Then he asked Joanne for the use of her phone.

"Sure thing, sweetheart." Even though neither of them had looked back on that day when Joanne had made Donny a winsome offer, she still admitted to crushing on him once in a while. She pretended to look busy lighting another cigarette while her attentive ears pricked up at the chance to get in on a juicy conversation.

Donny waited for the operator to connect him to his parent's home while his fingers tapped on Joanne's desk. At last his mother's voice came through the other end. "It's a good thing you listen when a woman talks, Donny. Here's Ruth."

There was a scuffling sound and then Ruth's voice was heard into the phone.

"Donny?" Her voice had softened slightly, almost tenderly with regret. "I wanted to apologize for all those things I said earlier on about the baseball bat and your mission. It was petty and selfish of me to talk like that."

He shrugged even though she couldn't see him face to face. "S'okay, Ruth," he mumbled.

"No, it's not okay," she insisted. "I was too angry and stubborn to take you seriously. So if you say you're following the Apache Indian's orders then I just have to accept the fact that you know what you're doing." She paused and added, "I want to sign your baseball bat too."

"You want to? Or you're just doing this to be nice?" he demanded.

"I _want _to," Ruth repeated. "But there's something we need to settle as well."

He could feel the weight of a single word hanging over their heads. "The _get_," Donny said at last.

"Yes. Rabbi Markus said we also need a civil divorce validated along with the _get_. I called City Hall and there's a rabbinical council at the Harrisonburg synagogue nearby downtown. We can get both done in one morning if we have all the legal papers with us."

She made it sound so cold and logical that he wondered if she was just tired of fighting with him and wanted to give up. Or maybe it was better this way so they'd avoid blowing up in each other's faces.

Donny mulled this over for a moment before getting an idea. "Can you take the train down to Virginia this Sunday?"

"This Sunday? No, no I can't," Ruth said quickly. "I can come on Thursday and arrive on the 9:30 train at night. Is that okay?"

"Yeah, that's fine. Bring whatever papers we need and I'll bring my baseball bat. I'll book you a room at the Blue Fox Hotel so you'll be able to get some sleep for the night."

"Thanks," Ruth said quietly. "And Donny?"

"Yes?"

The sound of her calm breathing made something ache beneath his ribcage. "I just wanted to say that I'm proud of you," Ruth said at last. "I'll see you in a few days."

He closed his eyes and tried to imagine her lips speaking into the phone. Tried to imagine the books stacked on the table and the old tea kettle brewing away in case of unexpected company. Tried to imagine her fingers playing with her gold chain or smoothing down any wrinkles in her dress while his mother was waiting patiently in the background for two kids to stop squabbling and patch things up properly.

"Take care, Baby Ruth. Tell Ma I say hi."

Donny hung up and walked out of the office just as Adam Tien came in to check his mailbox.

"Call me tongue-tied and knocked off my feet," Joanne said to Adam while tapping her cigarette ashes into a tray. "That man's got balls of steel that would scare the entire Kraut army but underneath it all he's just a big cuddly teddy bear."

"You'd better watch out if Donny hears you," Adam cautioned. "Otherwise he'll make you take that comment back between your front teeth." But at least Donny was looking better than he had all week.

A-A-A

When that train rolled into the station she was determined to hold her head up high and present herself as the respectable wife of a U.S. officer so Ruth took extra pains to dress attentively before leaving Boston. Her old blue beret sat obediently on top of her head and she had dabbed a little lipstick on her mouth to hide the paleness. Ruth had also worn her good tweed suit with the matching pleated skirt and slipped her feet into black leather wedge shoes. The shoes pinched her toes a bit but it was a small sacrifice overall.

If only the queasiness in her stomach would settle down! Thank goodness for the conductor who noticed her staggering out of the bathroom back into the sitting car. Ruth would've fallen down had he not supported her by the elbow and escorted Ruth back to her seat.

"You all right there?" he asked with frank concern. "You look a bit pale, ma'am. Let me open a window so you can get some air."

She thanked him and fanned her face when a gentle breeze came through the window. Ruth sipped some Coke and watched the landscape changed as the train rattled on through cities and across fields.

_I'm getting divorced. No more Baby Ruth, Donny's wife. Back to being Ruth Shapiro. No more morning eggs and tying his tie for synagogue. No more tickling my feet under the blankets. He's going over there like David's going to slay Goliath and there's nothing I can do to stop it._

At last the train came to a slow hissing halt outside the station. Ruth departed slowly, taking her time getting down the iron steps until her heels clicked against the concrete walk. She saw Donny standing at one end of the platform and goodness, how smart and handsome he looked in his uniform! The brass buttons gleamed brightly on Donny's olive-green wool jacket, his pants were perfectly creased, and his newly-cut hair lay smooth and shiny under his cap. Ruth felt a swell of pride in her chest and her breath had become tight with anticipation. Even under the somber circumstances it was a blessed relief to see his face again.

Donny had just been talking to a man with a salt-and-pepper mustache who wore a leather bomber jacket over his tan uniform. His eyes flickered to Ruth and she felt a jolt inside when he spotted her sharply amidst a sea of other passengers. The stranger assessed her in the blink of an eye before saying something to Donny and then walking off.

Donny approached Ruth and stopped short two inches in front of her. "Hi," he said.

"Hello," she managed a polite smile.

"So…we gonna do this after all?"

"Yes, I suppose we should."

He scratched the back of his head. "But first, do you want something to eat? A sandwich?"

"No, I'm fine. Thank you."

"Well, we'd better get a move on to the hotel." To Ruth's surprised relief, he offered his arm to her and she primly took it as if they were going off to the movies together.

A-A-A

"You didn't tell me what kind of place this was," Ruth murmured in astonishment when they reached the hotel lobby. "I should've worn my evening dress."

"You look fine," he assured her. Indeed, the Blue Fox was no cheap rundown inn. Donny was one of many young men in uniform seen walking around the lobby while businessmen and several women in cocktail gowns drifted from room to room. Potted plants had been placed around a bubbling fountain while the dimmed lights of the bar room reflected off glossy wooden tables and a brass railing.

Donny glanced back at Ruth's awestruck expression. "Seven miles away from an army base is the last place to set a scrub-shop like this but at least the upper officers have somewhere decent to get away for a while. How about getting a drink?"

Ruth nodded willingly and let Donny lead her into the bar.

The waiter who came to their table sized up the couple quickly. The little lady was nothing like the glamorous platinum-blonde women in satin gowns from poster boards but her modest tailored suit suited the brunette's gentle features just fine. Her husband with his expressive mouth, deep brown eyes, and cutting jaw line was a far cry from the billboard advertisements that showed clean-shaven enlistees with sparkling white smiles who looked too cheery to be going off to war.

When the dark-haired officer politely drew up a chair for his wife before sitting down in his own chair, the gesture of chivalry brought a nostalgic tear to the waiter's eye.

"Evening officer," he said when he came to their table. "What can I get you and the misses tonight?"

"A double Scotch on the rocks," Donny said. He turned to his wife. "What about you?"

"Ginger ale, please."

"Not in this place," Donny insisted with a wag of his finger. He glanced at the waiter. "Think you can fix up an Amber Dream for the lady?" The waiter nodded and disappeared with their order.

"What's that?" asked Ruth.

"Bit of peppermint schnapps and a splash of whiskey. It'll make your ginger ale tap dance," he assured her.

When the waiter brought them their drinks in a few quick minutes Ruth picked up her Amber Dream and held it in midair. "Well, can't say we didn't try," she admitted to Donny while giving him a better smile. "Here's to three years with us."

"To us," he nodded, allowing his glass to clink against hers.

They sipped their drinks while listening to the soothing sound of piano and violins from the band. A woman was singing in a deep throaty voice: "_We'll meet again, don't know where, don't know when…but I'll know we'll meet again some sunny day_."

The performer's flawless rendition of the Vera Lynn song should have been clichéd but to Ruth it couldn't have been a more fitting tune to end their night—and their relationship-together. Donny swallowed down his scotch while Ruth sipped her drink and finally let her head rest in her hands. Her eyes closed and she let the woman's soothing melody and tender words sweep over her.

"_Keep smiling through just like you always do, _

_Till the blue skies drive the dark clouds far away._

_So will you please say hello to the folks that I know_

_Tell them I won't be long._

_They'll be happy to know_

_That as they saw me go I was singing this song..."_

When the song ended and everyone else clapped loudly, Ruth opened her eyes slowly and looked at Donny. There was no way of explaining why he was starring at her as if she had a halo over her head. Maybe it was just the music or the schnapps in her ginger ale was playing tricks on her mind. He kept his eyes fixed on her and wouldn't take them off for a second.

_Does he know?_ Ruth couldn't tell. He had a better poker face than her.

"Can I sign your baseball bat now?"

"Sure. I left it upstairs in the room." He paid for their drinks and they went up to the hotel room that was small but clean and pleasantly furnished. Ruth knew she'd be comfortable for the night but felt a twinge of disappointment when she saw the bed was big enough for only one person. Had he done that deliberately?

Donny was already pulling out the baseball bat from under the bed. "Here you go. I left a little room near the handle."

Ruth took it in her hands along with Donny's pen knife. She was amazed at the names of all their friends and family who had signed it, a collage of tributes and prayers to accompany him on the dangerous mission ahead. Not just Joseph and Nathan had signed but even old Carbodna who had drawn a _hamsa_, the hand-shaped symbol of good fortune, into the baseball bat.

"Don't cut yourself," he warned Ruth. She was careful to unfold the pen knife and engrave BABY RUTH near the bat handle in capital letters before giving it back to him.

"Thanks, Ruth." Donny rotated the bat twice in his palm before using it to point to the bed. "Well, I guess I'd better let you get some sleep. We've got a busy day ahead tomorrow."

"Yeah," Ruth nodded. "Good night."

She watched his gaze linger on her for a few more seconds before slowly, ever so slowly, turning around and taking his time to walk to the door. Everything seemed to be happening in a suspended moment when Ruth felt that _thing_ inside of her jolt unexpectedly and eagerly. _It_ was telling her to speak up before he left the room.

Four more steps...three steps…two...one...

Donny was reaching for the doorknob and his fingers had barely touched it when Ruth blurted out, "Do you know why I couldn't come on Sunday?"

He remained frozen in his tracks, his ears perked up with an acute sharpness and anticipation of what was yet to come. Donny knew the answer already but he wanted to hear it from Ruth's lips. He needed her to speak the truth.

_Say it, Ruth. I've got to hear you say it before I go crackers. _

"I had an appointment with Dr. Cohen."

That was all Donny needed to hear.

_Thank God. Oh thank God you haven't let me down, kiddo. _

Ruth was startled when he turned around and in three wide strides was back at her side in a moment. The baseball bat had fallen out of his hand and lay dormant on the floor. Donny dropped to his knees and clasped his hands tightly around her waist, his expression vivid with such open honesty and alarm that she realized he knew it too.

_"She's got a bun in the oven," Raine nodded to Donny. He had only gotten one far-off glance at the little Mrs. Donowitz in the station but that was all the Apache required to figure it out._

_Donny couldn't believe his ears. "Are you sure, lieutenant? How can you tell?"_

_"Something in the face. Always a woman's face." Raine calmly fingered the handle of his Bowie knife. "If I'm wrong then I owe you ten dollars and the whole Island of Manhattan. But I'm never wrong, Sergeant."_

"I was so unsure, I kept fretting all the way here wondering if you should know or not," Ruth was stammering hastily. "I thought this might cloud your judgment or your mission but I had to tell you...the doctor said it was true."

He closed his eyes and pressed his forehead to Ruth's stomach, his face nearly buried in the fabric of her jacket. "My mission. My _fucking_ mission," Donny said aloud.

He quickly untucked the bottom of her blouse from her skirt and pushed it up enough to show the soft pinkish arch of Ruth's stomach. Just the slightest change, completely natural for a woman who always had her fair share of curves, but nevertheless it was there.

Donny pressed his lips to his wife's navel, his mouth savoring the milky scent of her skin and the warm contact of flesh to his mouth. He kissed her like she was the most sacred object of the world before resting his cheek against her abdomen.

"Three years. Three freakin' years of kicking me out of bed on a Saturday," he was ranting on. "What the hell do you think I was doing at synagogue while bouncing Joseph on my knee and listening to Rabbi Markus's sermons? Nothing? Hell no, Baby Ruth. If God was a man then I'd be talking His ears off from every conversation we had—well, _I_ had about family."

He got to his feet and saw her face flushing bright pink, a wide smile cracking out on her face. Then they were both standing there with crazy grinning expressions and fingers locked together.

"You've been thinkin' of any names? Dear lord, not Mordechai," Donny said. "It's a pain in the ass to spell and they'd make fun of him at school."

"I kept going back to girl's names. Abigail would be sweet, same with Rivka...they could call her Rebbecca too. I also like Hannah."

"Hannah means 'grace', right?"

"Right."

"That's pretty." Donny's palm was still pressed against Ruth's stomach and circling it gently.

"And if it's a boy...David or Joshua." Ruth's eyebrows lifted at Donny in search of approval. He nodded knowingly.

"David. I like it."

He kissed her on the lips and then to Ruth's surprise, began unbuttoning the front of her jacket. The heavy material fell off Ruth's shoulders and pooled on the ground leaving her white blouse exposed. She glanced up curiously to see his dark eyes glistening as his pupils began to dilate with desire. Ruth could also feel her breath slowing down and get heavier with every passing moment. _Nope, it's not the drinks_, she thought.

"You're still my wife for one more night," Donny said as his palms sculpted up and down the curve of her shoulders and warmed Ruth all over. "Do me one last favor, sweetheart."

"But the bed," Ruth protested.

"I'll get us another room with a bigger one," he assured her quickly. "Just as long as we're not battling each other for breathing room."

Ruth's lips parted anxiously. "Unconditional surrender?"

He chuckled softly and pulled her close enough for their foreheads to touch gently. The sound of his voice was smoke and honey to her ears. "Get used to it, babe. I plan on winning a lot of fights lately," Donny murmured in his wife's ears.

A-A-A

They had done this time and time again but somehow it felt different that night. Their bare bodies curled up together in the sheets of a double bed and they traced one another's features in the dark, trying to remember the best of everything for a few last meaningful hours while the thread of understanding was formed between them. Ruth and Donny exchanged confessions that somehow ended up making her laugh instead of cry. She admitted that she hadn't been in love with Donny when she married him and had taken a bit of a risk—and followed a growing hunch—to propose the idea of commitment to him.

"Remember the night when Joseph Birnbaum was born?" she asked Donny. "It was snowing a blizzard outside and Tali Birnbaum rang for our diner because that's where Dr. Cohen was that night. She kept crying that her mother had given birth to a baby who was yellow in the face and not breathing well at all.

"I remember I was stacking plates in the front when you and Nathan Straus burst in through the door, both of you covered in snow and sporting dripping wet noses. Yelling at the top of your lungs for Dr. Cohen to 'get his ass over to the Birnbaums' and you practically picked him up by the seat of his pants and carried him out the door back to their house."

"That's it?" Donny stopped running his fingers across Ruth's arm at the climax of the story. "You wanted to marry me because of _that_?"

"It showed just what kind of a man you are-at least to me. And by the way, thanks for saving Joseph's life." In the darkness of the room he felt Ruth's body shift slightly to curve into his own comfortably.

"Mrs. Goldstein sent me three times out of town—twice to New York City and once to Trenton—to meet eligible bachelors and none of them could do even half of that. And they weren't very nice to their mothers," Ruth added with disdain. "I found out the hard way when they tried to bring me to their homes."

"Fuck a duck," Donny said. The mattress springs creaked when he rolled over onto his back. "For a sensible woman you sure do some crazy things. That was one big risk you took, babe."

"It was worth it. Despite all your flaws-"

"_My_ flaws? You're the one who always told me to wear warms socks time and time again but for cryin' out loud woman. Your toes can get ice-cold!" Donny shouted.

"And you're very hairy," Ruth added, fingertips resting on the tufts of hair that sprouted generously on his chest. "Which I may add could affect our child's looks."

"At least it won't be bald like Mr. Bloom!"

A soft laugh escaped Ruth's lips. Then in a calmer moment she took Donny's hand and pressed her lips to the center of his palm before kissing every one of his fingers and then the pulsing point at his wrist. The affectionate gesture was noted and welcomed by Donny.

"You're right. I took a big risk in marrying you, Donny Donowitz. But you're not one to live with regrets either, are you?"

Her question had hushed him up for at least a moment while Donny's strong arms wrapped around Ruth's waist and cradled her into the warmth of his body so they were cupped into each other. She sighed with satisfaction while her pulse drummed in time to the sound of his deep breathing in her ear.

"You may not be my husband after tomorrow but frankly I think I'm still going to love you every day for the rest of my life."

"Is that a promise, Baby Ruth?"

"Yes. And a Donowitz always keeps a promise."

A-A-A

When Ruth woke up the next morning she was somewhat dismayed to find out the radiator had been shut off some hours ago. The air was frigid when she poked her head out from under the sheets so she stayed snuggled comfortably in Donny's arms for another half-hour until the clock chimed ten. Only then did she begin tapping her fingers against his cheek to get him to wake up from a heavy sleep.

"What?" he smothered a massive yawn.

"It's time," she said simply and efficiently. After sealing their personal pact last night Ruth felt resolved and determined to face the challenge ahead. "We have to do this."

Donny rubbed a hand through his tousled hair but after a few confused glances he finally understood. "Oh, right." He threw off the covers and put his feet on the floor.

Within the hour they were both showered and dressed. Hand in hand they left the hotel and went to City Hall to get the civil divorce papers. With all the necessary certificates and licenses with them, all it took was a few signatures to set matters in order. Then they took a bus across town to the synagogue where several rabbinical leaders and witnesses were assembled to authorize the _get_.

Explaining the complications of their situation proved simpler than expected. One of the rabbis informed Donny and Ruth that they weren't the first couple to show up that year. Other married Jewish-American soldiers had the same intentions for months now. Though somber in manner, his sincere words assured Donny that he was doing the right thing. Donny wrote out a check of consent, he and Ruth signed some papers, and that was that. The Donowitz couple was no more and Donny and Ruth were considered no more as two parts of one whole, but two completely separate entities.

The expression that Donny gave Ruth did not go unnoticed by the rabbi who initiated their divorce. The elderly man perceived a tranquil connection that was shared by the officer and his ex-wife as they walked out of the room with their hands clasped tightly together. It was as if they had just been remarried instead of separated forever.

When Donny walked Ruth back to the train station he was surprised at the elated feeling inside of him. It was not a sense of relief over signing his life away but rather the emotions of defiance and determination that motivated him. They had just been separated by ink and paper. Soon blood and battle would separate them further as the ocean would carry him far away from her...possibly forever.

But they would not be beaten. Two thousand years of a Diaspora exile could testify to overcoming the obstacles that lay ahead. As long as they had each other and the heritage of their ancestors blazing like a torch, it would illuminate the difficult journey he had coming his way. Donny had every reason to become a Bastard now and they all came down to Ruth. Her mission wouldn't involve scalping heads or shooting bullets like his but it was a task he knew she was fully capable of upholding.

"Will I ever see you again?" Ruth had asked him uneasily.

The unspoken answer died on his lips when he couldn't find the appropriate words to speak. Ruth's head lowered in dismay when she realized what this meant. Then Donny brought a hand under her chin and tilted it back up to his face.

"You promise to love me every day for the rest of your life?" he asked as his fingers gently stroked her chin. "Then you take damn good care of our kid. Ma and Pa will be thrilled to hear it. And I want everyone to know that I don't regret a single thing I've done for the past three years and I sure don't regret what I'm gonna do from now on".

They had given each other one long final kiss and when Ruth whispered a Hebrew prayer into his ear and dropped something glittering into his hand, he knew that he was more ready than he had ever been in his life.

Neither Donny nor Ruth were aware of Lieutenant Aldo Raine's presence at the back of the train station. He stood quietly and patiently, knowing his second in command would be able to report back to duty when everything was settled into order.

"It's about time," he said to himself.

_10 MONTHS LATER:_

It was a pretty autumn day in France. _Pretty even for my kind of work_, Donny mused to himself.

A yellow leaf had fallen off a tree and landed it his hair. It was still damp with dew and bent rather than crunched between his fingers when he picked it up and tossed it aside.

The rest of the Bastards were on the other side of the old railroad bridge looting what was left of the Nazi corpses. Let it not be said that Raine's men let anything go to waste. A pair of boots or an extra knife were necessary resources when you were hiding in the woods.

And boy did hiding pay off. They had been paving a road of hell and brimstone back to Berlin where all sorts of whispers had reached Adolph Hitler and could make those Krauts piss in their uniform pants with fear. They had dropped unexpectedly into France, begun shooting every Nazi in sight, and vanish without a trace before more troops could lay their hands on the Bastards.

Let the Third Reich know that one segment of the Hebrew race would not go quietly into the dark night but rage and rage...and this was no dying light at all. If anything, Donny felt himself get stronger and braver as the weeks went on.

_Golem my ass_, he laughed. According to legend the Golem was mute so considering Donny's motor mouth tongue, he didn't find the similarities very noticeable. Nevertheless he appreciated the publicity of the rumors. These little smoke-and-mirror antics of the Bastards, combined with loose tongues, were turning him into an urban legend. Whether "Bearen Jude" by the Germans or "La Bete Noire" by the French, he was still Sergeant Donny Donowitz, the bat-swinging Jew from Boston who wouldn't hesitate to crack your skull open with a piece of wood.

_Batman meets the Bear Jew_, Donny mused. _That'll make a great comic book cover._

While he couldn't see much more than a square of light at the other end of the tunnel, Donny could hear the conversation going pretty well since the echo carried their words all the way back to him. Raine was interrogating one of the last three soldiers they had captured and judging by his tone of voice, things were going to get ugly. This Sergeant Rachtman was being a complete asshole by not telling Raine about the rest of the troop hiding in a nearby orchard.

"You can't expect me to divulge information that would put German lives in danger," a cool arrogant voice was speaking to Raine.

"Well Werner, that's where you're wrong. Because that's exactly what I expect," Raine's Tennessee drawl went on. "I need to about Germans hiding in them trees. You need to tell me and you need to tell me now."

Donny swung his baseball bat to and fro impatiently. _Hardshot. He won't talk_.

By now he had come to understand there were two types of adversaries. The first type would break down and cooperate when they realized they were just helpless pathetic men without their guns and troops to protect them. They were like the Whitmores and Captain Reeds of Germany; the men Donny could laugh at and poke around when the Bastards where calling the shots.

But the second kind, the stubborn enemies, would take their fucking Aryan pride down with them to the grave. You just couldn't wring them for any more blood or tears so you'd have to beat their insolent heads senseless.

Those were the people who had flattened Jewish villages and set fire to countless buildings without shedding so much as a tear. In Donny's eyes such a powerful and dangerous form of malevolence could not go unchecked. It has to be destroyed before it sprang out and got to you first.

That was when Raine started using the rumor of the Bear Jew to their advantage. He'd keep Donny in the shadows and when he had gotten every bit of information he needed, the lieutenant would let Donny burst out into the spotlight with enough energy to fuel a tank. The element of surprise and the look on the prisoners' faces when they saw Donny was priceless. They never knew a Jew could fight back, let alone be this powerful or daring.

"You need to tell me right now how many are comin' and what they brought to play with," Raine repeated.

Rachtman's unemotional voice grated on Donny's nerves when he haughtily said, "I respectfully refuse".

_Talk about a superior race_, Donny miffed. _Here's what I think of your fucking eugenics program._

He hit the Louisville slugger against the tunnel bricks for a few times, just for measure.

_WHACK! WHACK!  
_

The sound echoed smartly down the tunnel towards Aldo Raine.

"Do you hear that?" Raine asked the prisoner.

"I hear that." Rachtman hadn't broken a sweat or else there'd be a wobble in his voice.

_Now for the overture. _Donny wacked his bat a few more times for good measure while Aldo warned Rachtman about what he was getting himself into.

"What do you know about the Bear Jew, Werner?"

_WHACK! WHACK! WHACK!_

Again, the monotone voice spoke calmly. "He beats German soldiers with a club."

_Wrong, buster. This is a genuine Louisville Slugger compliments of the Jewish community of Boston. Little Joey Birnbaum would chew your kneecaps out for that._

"He bashes their brains in with a baseball bat is what he does."

_Oh thank you very much, Lieutenant. _

Raine warned Rachtman that if he did not cooperate then he'd "call the Bear Jew over" to do with Rachtman what he did with every person that crossed the wrong path with the Bastards. Donny gave his superior officer enough credit to offer the man more than one chance to life but frankly, he knew Rachtman was ready to go down with the sinking Titanic.

There was a moment of silence until Rachtman gave his answer. "Fuck you! And your Jew dogs!" he yelled at last. Everyone roared with laughter, including Donny.

_Stee-rike three and you're out! Just in time for batting practice._

"We're all tickled to hear you say that," Raine was chuckling. "'Cuz frankly watching Donny beatin' Nazis to death is the closest thing we ever get to goin' to the movies." On cue, he yelled down to the tunnel. "Hey Donny!"

"Yeah?" he called back as a huge grin spread across his face.

"Nice German here wants to die for his country. Oblige him."

Donny kissed the gold talisman he wore around his neck for good luck—and for her.

_Here we go, babe._

He took his time walking down the tunnel towards the prisoner, banging his bat against the tunnel bricks with every single step for a dramatic entrance. By the time Donny got out to the other side of the tunnel and into the light again he was brimming with unbridled energy. The other Bastards whooped and cheered him on including Wicki, Utivich, and new-recruit Hugo Stieglitz who called out "Daah-nee" in a thick German accent.

Every muscle in his body was on fire, every nerve coiled tightly with anticipation. This is what he had been waiting for all day.

Donny eyed the Nazi with disgust. A stoic man with blonde hair, a bronzed face that remained passive and stubborn despite the harshness of his treatment, and the proud cold blue eyes of a killer. The splitting image of what a Nazi was supposed to be: fearless, ruthless, and sadistic. How many little Josephs and Nathans and Ruths had this man lined up and shot into a big grave last week? No mercy, no mercy at all. Donny was going to give him everything that he deserved.

His gaze fell to the iron cross pinned on the man's uniform. Donny tapped it with his bat.

"Did you get that for killing Jews?" he asked scornfully.

The answer was curt and defiant. "Bravery."

_All right, suit yourself you son of a bitch._

Donny let the baseball bat touch the prisoner's right temple before raising it over his head. With adrenaline pumping through his veins and the whisper of an oath in his ears, Donny Donowitz brought the baseball bat down with the vengeance of ten thousand men.

END

A-A-A

_Beit Din_ – A rabbinical court who handles religious matters.

_Hamsa_ – A hand-shaped symbol that is common in the Middle East and worn on the wall or as an amulet or jewelry. Jewish mysticism suggests the five fingers represent protection to the five physical senses.

Note: The concept of Nathan Gideon Straus, Donny's friend, is fictional. But Nathan Straus, founder of Macys and the man who missed out on the ill-fated Titanic, was a real-life person and a renowned philanthropist who also donated money to the New York Public Library.

Wicki's back-story is completely made up as well as the concept behind his sister Monika, who I believe still performs at the London Symphony Orchestra.

This story is dedicated to all the Steve Whitmores, Corporal Adam Tiens, and Colonel Kemps in our lives who have helped us get through the rough times. Thank you for reading.


End file.
